Dirk Arthur, last Las Vegas Big Cat magician, dies at 63
Dirk Arthur, the last magician to use wild animals in a Las Vegas magic show, has died at age 63.
Officials at Westgate Las Vegas, where Arthur most recently worked, confirmed his death to the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Monday. Specific details about his death were not disclosed. The R-J reported last month that he was planning a new show in Branson, Missouri.
Dirk Arthur's Wild Magic debuted in 1997 at the Jubilee at Bally's, before making its way to Silverton, Plaza, Tropicana, O'Sheas, Harrah's and Laughlin in Reno and the Riviera in the months before the hotel closed in 2015.
Prior to that, it was known as "Dirk Arthur's Wild Illusions" and was the last official exotic cat show on the Las Vegas Strip.
The ninth game of Dirk Arthur's Wild Magic (as well as the ninth game) took place at Westgate over a five-month period in 2017 and 2018. Before the opening, Arthur had to abandon plans to depict snow leopards, lynxes, birds and ducks.
Arthur blamed the space constraints of the time, although he had performed in smaller exhibition spaces before. Animal rights groups protesting the show won a victory when the cats were removed.
Weird timing
News of Arthur's death comes on the 20th anniversary of the accident that ended Siegfried and Roy's careers, and it turns out not everything was told at the time.
Big cat exhibits have fallen out of favor due to the cultural shift toward animal welfare and conservation. But Roy Horn's infamous tiger attack dramatically hastened the end of the era of caged animals performing for the entertainment of Las Vegas audiences.
By 2017, even Ringling Brothers Bros. and the Barnum & Bailey Circus, a staple of children's entertainment since 1871, were upping the ante—even though the world's most popular circus The famous circus returned last month, but without the animals.
The last persistence
By July 2022, Arthur plans to single-handedly bring performing big cats back to the Las Vegas stage. He keeps at least 10 of them in a private zoo on a one-acre habitat west of the Las Vegas Strip near Silverton, at an estimated cost of $150,000 a year.
However, Arthur had originally planned to host a new show called "Magic Unleashed" featuring white and orange tigers, a snow leopard and a lynx, but due to animal activists actively protesting at the Notoriety of Neonopolis on Fremont Street Live Theatre, where Arthur had hoped to stage a show, but plans for the show fell through. implement.
Times apparently got so hard for Arthur that, according to the R-J obituary, he eventually became an usher at the West Gate - presumably at the theater where his show once headlined.
Following Arthur's death, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) issued a statement calling for all of Arthur's remaining exotic cats to be sent to "accredited sanctuaries where they have space to roam, opportunities to swim, climb and enjoy freedom." "Finally free from stage lights and dirty cages."
Read also:
- Blackjack Casino Advantage: How to Beat the Odds
- Football 101: What is relegation in football?
- Philadelphia Rivers Casino opens luxury suite hotel near Battery
- Crown Resorts chief faces investigation that could affect his license
Source: www.casino.org
