‘Doc’ Antle From ‘Tiger King’ Big Cat Gallery From King Richard’s Faire
Like many thousands — maybe millions at this point — of people in the last few days, I just watched the Netflix docu-series Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness. In addition to just being gobsmacked by how awful the primary characters are, I was shocked to realize I had taken photos of Bhagavan ‘Doc’ Antle a number of times in the past dozen years or so.
For almost three decades, Antle’s South Carolina-based operation previously known as T.I.G.E.R.S. — aka The Institute for Greatly Endangered and Rare Species — put on the Big Cats show at King Richard’s Faire in Carver, Mass. And almost every year I went I got a few photos of the show or the animals in the viewing cage to the left side of the big stage. Antle’s business now goes by the name “Doc Antle’s Myrtle Beach Safari,” and according to reports, it is closed because of coronavirus concerns, like nearly every paid attraction in the United States.
Since the series premiered on Netflix, many other news outlets realized what I just did, and at least one of them reached out to the Faire for comment. According to the website for the Southcoast radio station Fun107.com, Antle’s group hasn’t been the one running the Big Cats show since 2015. And there will be no such show when the renaissance fair opens in late summer this year.
Aimée Shapiro Sedley, general manager and co-producer of King Richard’s Faire, is quoted in the article as saying, “King Richard’s Faire has no plans to have any exotic cat shows at the Faire.”
Most of the photos in the gallery that show Antle and/or his assistants on stage were shot on film, before I had a digital camera, and date back to 2008.
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