Bhagavan “Doc” Antle was accused of illegally buying endangered lion cubs in Frederick County, Virginia, for display and profit at his South Carolina zoo, Attorney General Jason Miyares said in a news release.
WINCHESTER, Va. — A wild animal trainer featured in the popular Netflix series “Tiger King” has been convicted of wildlife trafficking in Virginia, the attorney general’s office announced Tuesday.
Antle, who owns the Myrtle Beach Safari, appeared in “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness,” a Netflix documentary miniseries that focused on tiger breeders. When Antle and Keith Wilson, the park's former owner, began doing business in 2015, it was still legal to buy and sell lions, Welch said. But after lions were designated as an endangered species in December 2015, lions could only be traded between zoos and wildlife preserves that were part of an established breeding program and had permits. There were three illegal cub exchanges in 2017, 2018 and 2019, Welch said.
Defense attorney Erin Harrigan called Antle’s prosecution politically motivated in response to a growing public outcry against wild animals being exploited for entertainment purposes.
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