Doc Antle’s SC facility, featured in ‘Tiger King,’ closed after coronavirus order
Bhagavan “Doc” Antle said Myrtle Beach Safari is closed following the governor’s executive order, despite a message on his website indicating otherwise.
Antle and his Socastee-area facility, also known as The Institute for Greatly Endangered and Rare Species (T.I.G.E.R.S.), have received widespread international attention after being featured on the true crime documentary series “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness,” currently the most-watched program on Netflix.
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster ordered specific non-essential businesses to close beginning Wednesday in a continued effort to reduce the spread of coronavirus. The order lasts 15 days, but could be extended.
A spokesperson for the state’s Joint Information Center, which is providing public information on COVID-19 response, confirmed Antle’s facility would fall into the governor’s non-essential order under tourist attraction.
The Myrtle Beach Safari posted an update on its website Wednesday morning that it is not planning to cancel any tours, but Antle told The Sun News that they are closed for the duration of the order, but he worried that posting about tours being canceled would confuse people with tours scheduled for later.
The facility will continue taking care of the animals and accepting reservations, but won’t operate tours until the order is lifted, he said, noting that he’s sent memos to people who had booked tours scheduled during the next couple weeks.
Antle said he believes his company will survive, but the money spent to feed the exotic animals without the subsequent income generated from tours will take funds away from their international conservation efforts, which he operates under the nonprofit Rare Species Fund.
Antle has been critical of the seven-episode “Tiger King” docuseries, which premiered March 20 on Netflix, but he projected that the massive exposure will end up being a positive for his business because most people will see the directors spun the story to portray him in a negative light.
The story primarily follows the story of Joseph Maldonado-Passage, better known as Joe Exotic, a boisterous exotic animal exhibitor in Oklahoma who was sentenced to 22 years in jail earlier this year for attempting to hire someone to murder Carole Baskin, an outspoken animal rights activist who operates a big cat sanctuary near Tampa, Florida.
But the show also delves into the stories of several other exotic animal owners, including Antle, who gets accused of operating with cult-like tendencies, sleeping with several of his female employees who start working for him as teenagers, and euthanizing tiger cubs after they’re too old to interact with the public.
Before the series aired, Antle told The Sun News that he guessed Netflix was featuring his facility due to its massive social media following, but he’s surprised at how popular the show has become.
He’s received interview requests from news outlets all over the world, and Antle suggested the show’s popularity is closely connected to so many people sitting on the couch looking for something to watch due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Antle posted a montage Tuesday on his Instagram page of various interviews he’s given since the series premiered along with a lengthy caption disputing many of the claims made against him.
The most important claim for him to refute is about the euthanization of tiger cubs, he told The Sun News.
A representative of People for Ethical Treatment of Animals says in the series finale that Joe Exotic told her he knows Antle euthanizes and incinerates tigers, though Exotic previously told The Sun News the exact opposite — that he knew for a fact Antle didn’t euthanize tiger cubs because a lot of those cubs ended up at his facility.
Antle said most tigers born at their facility stay through adulthood and are either featured on tours or used in their breeding program, while others are donated to accredited zoological facilities, but he gets far more requests for tigers than he could possible fulfill.
He declined to tell The Sun News where the tigers are donated because he’s concerned animal rights organizations would begin harassing those facilities.
While Antle was overall “disappointed” with his depiction in the series, which he argues is not a documentary because of the contrived shots the directors created, he was happy that they dug into details surrounding the disappearance of Carole Baskin’s former husband, Don Lewis.
The third episode of the series dives deep into the story of Baskin and appears to show a significant amount of evidence suggesting she murdered Lewis, potentially feeding him to a tiger.
Baskin authored a lengthy post refuting many of the assertions made in the documentary, pointing to numerous public records she wrote would completely disprove some of the people interviewed.
Antle frequently takes his elephant, Bubbles, to bathe in the nearby Intracoastal Waterway, and he said that people have begun to shout, “Carole killed her husband!” as they pass on their boats.
This story was originally published April 1, 2020 at 2:57 PM.
