Doc Antle From 'Tiger King' Makes A Ton Of Money From His Big Cats
Netflix's new docuseries, Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness, is currently one of the streaming service's top-watched shows. The plotline follows the true (crazy) story of Joe Maldonaldo-Passage, who went by the name "Joe Exotic,", a.k.a. the "Tiger King", who was supposedly inspired by Bhagavan “Doc” Antle, the founder and director of The Institute for Greatly Endangered and Rare Species, also known as T.I.G.E.R.S., in Myrtle Beach, Florida.
Doc Antle apparently makes a pretty penny from his business, which is still in operation. In fact, he revealed some pretty stunning numbers about his income and the money he makes from his safari park during an exclusive interview with Rolling Stone back in 2015.
People pay a ton of money to visit Doc Antle's park.
Well, first let's take a look at how much a single visit to the safari park might cost visitors. Tours at T.I.G.E.R.S., which are offered three times a week during the summer, cost $339 per person. And if you want professional photos, those start at $150 (and since personal photos and video are forbidden, it kind of leaves you with no choice). So yep, you're looking at almost $500 for a visit.
T.I.G.E.R.S. apparently averages 45 paying customers per tour, by the way. Between the tours and photo packages (an estimate of 10 per tour, or one per group) for three tours a week, over the 26 weeks a year that the business is open, the Myrtle Beach park alone grosses around $1.3 million annually.
Doc Antle also earns money from satellite locations.
Speaking of other locations... T.I.G.E.R.S. also has a satellite storefront at an outdoor mall in Myrtle Beach that sells photos of its cubs during the summer, and also has a smaller facility in Miami that is part of Jungle Island amusement park, where they perform big cat shows. So he can count on revenue from that, too.
But taking care of lions and tigers is pretty damn expensive.
The park keeps about 70 adult tigers (that can weigh between 300 to 500 pounds) and eat $5,000 to $10,000 worth of food a year.
Doc Antle also gives a lot of money to charity.
Antle told Rolling Stone that he donates about 10 percent of T.I.G.E.R.S.’ annual revenue to a nonprofit called the Rare Species Fund, which supports conservation projects around the world. Over the past three years, Antle also contributed $40,000 to the Corbett Foundation, which does tiger work in India. He also gave $20,000 to sponsor Dr. Jim Sanderson, whose Small Cat Conservation Alliance helps lesser-known endangered felines like the Andean cat, according to Rolling Stone.
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