His team was so confident in a pardon they had readied a celebratory limousine and a hair and wardrobe team to whisk away the zookeeper-turned-reality TV star, who is serving a 22-year federal prison sentence in Texas. But he was not on the list announced on Wednesday morning.

Joe Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, was sentenced in January 2020 to 22 years in federal prison for violating federal wildlife laws and for his role in a failed murder-for-hire plot targeting his chief rival, Carole Baskin, who runs a rescue sanctuary for big cats in Florida. Baskin was not harmed.

Maldonado-Passage, who has maintained his innocence, was also sentenced for killing five tigers, selling tiger cubs and falsifying wildlife records. A jury convicted him in April 2019.

In his pardon application filed in September, Maldonado-Passage's lawyers argued he was "railroaded and betrayed" by others. Maldonado-Passage, 57, is scheduled to be released from custody in 2037 but his lawyers said in the application that "he will likely die in prison" because of health concerns.

Maldonado-Passage's backers, who referred to themselves as "Team Tiger", said "140 million Joe Exotic fans had a hard time getting out of bed this morning".

"We are as disappointed that the president did not sign Joe's pardon, as we were confident yesterday that he would," their statement said.

It was a different story for Baskin, who wrote on social media that she was "thankful" he missed out on a pardon.

The blond mullet-wearing zookeeper, known for his expletive-laden rants on YouTube and a failed 2018 Oklahoma gubernatorial campaign, was prominently featured in the popular Netflix documentary Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness.

Australian Associated Press