Carole and Howard Baskin have dropped their lawsuit against Netflix over 'Tiger King 2'

And within hours of the documents being filed, Judge Virginia M. Hernandez Covington officially ended the matter without prejudice.

The couple later issued a lengthy statement on their decision, insisting the lawsuit was "never about money damages" and was distracting them from their true passion of stopping animal abuse.

They wrote on their website: "This lawsuit was never about money damages. With the injunction declined Season 2 was aired. It received generally poor reviews and dropped out of the Netflix top 10 rapidly.

"We feel we were denied the only meaningful remedy available to us and that pursuing money damages is not the best use of our time because it reduces the time we can spend on our mission of stopping the abuse. Our time should be spent getting the Big Cat Public Safety Act through Congress to stop the cub petting and the private ownership of big cats in backyards.

"Rather than suing those who produce salacious lies, our time should be spent working on meaningful productions like the award-winning documentary 'The Conservation Game' which exposes the “celebrity conservationists” who bring cubs onto TV talk shows and on our new two-episode series 'Carole Baskin’s Cage Fight' streaming now on discovery+ which authentically shows our work going after these dangerous big cat exploiters.

"Both of these productions have received very strong positive reviews in contrast to 'Tiger King Season 2'."

A judge had previously denied a motion for a temporary restraining order which would stop footage of Carole, Howard, and their sanctuary from being featured in the sequel because it "would be entered before Defendants have had an adequate opportunity to respond."

Carole has been vocal in the past about her unhappiness at the way she was depicted on the show, in particular the scrutiny over her missing first husband, Don Lewis, and insisted she had expected the programme to focus on her animal rescue efforts.