The tangled legal web on display early in quarantine on Netflix has apparently grown larger, as another Tiger King fixture is officially in legal trouble of his own. Doc Antle is the latest person featured on the show to see legal trouble, as apparently that’s a prerequisite in having interest in big cats in the first place. This time, however, it’s not a plot to kill a husband or a plot to kill someone who people think killed their husband, but about the actual movement of the caged wildlife across state lines.
According to Variety, Antle was indicted on wildlife trafficking charges along with another man, Keith A. Wilson. Antle, as you may recall, owns one of the private animal refuges that were featured in the Tiger King series on Netflix.
Antle faces one felony count of wildlife trafficking, one felony count of conspiracy to wildlife traffic, four misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to violate the Endangered Species Act and nine misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty.
Wilson has been charged with one felony count of wildlife trafficking, one felony count of conspiracy to wildlife traffic, four misdemeanor counts of violating the Endangered Species Act, four misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to violate the Endangered Species Act and nine misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty.
The charges stem from the movement of lion cubs between Wilson’s Wild Animal Park in Virginia and Antle’s Myrtle Beach Safari Park. As Variety noted, everything apparently started with the raid on Myrtle Beach Safari Park in 2019, which was mentioned briefly on the program but cameras were not around to capture.
While the show certainly had a lot of legal snafus and claims to explore in its subjects, and it certainly mentioned the practice of moving animals from various parks, it was far from the true focus of Tiger King. Those transactions, however, seem to have been the larger concern of authorities who now have brought charges against Antle, making Tiger King even more of a legal mess than it was when the program started streaming just a few months ago.
Source: https://uproxx.com/tv/tiger-king-doc-antle-wildlife-trafficking-charges/