Supreme Court of Virginia Holds Endangered Species Statute Prohibits Selling, Not Buying, Protected Wildlife
Commonwealth v. Antle, Record Nos. 250174 & 250190 (Va. June 4, 2026)
In this opinion, the Supreme Court of Virginia reverses all of a defendant’s convictions, holding that Virginia’s endangered species statute prohibits selling protected wildlife but, as currently written, says nothing about buying it.
Bhagavan Kevin Antle owned and operated a zoo in Myrtle Beach where customers could interact with lion cubs. Between 2018 and 2019, he purchased five lion cubs from a Virginia zoo owner named Keith Wilson. Because lions had been listed as endangered and threatened species under federal law in 2016, Virginia prosecutors charged Antle with two counts of purchasing lion cubs in violation of Code §§ 29.1-564 and 29.1-567, and two counts of conspiring with Wilson to sell or purchase lion cubs.
The central legal question was whether Code § 29.1-564—which explicitly prohibits the “taking, transportation, possession, sale, or offer for sale” of endangered or threatened wildlife—also prohibits purchasing such species. Antle argued throughout that the statute’s text simply does not include the words “purchase” or “offer to purchase,” and that he therefore could not be convicted under it. The circuit court rejected this argument, reading the penalty statute (Code § 29.1-567), which does reference purchasing and offering to purchase, together with Code § 29.1-564 to conclude that both buying and selling were prohibited. The jury convicted on all counts.
The Court of Appeals reversed the purchasing convictions, agreeing that Code § 29.1-564 cannot be read to prohibit conduct its text does not mention, but affirmed the conspiracy convictions on the theory that Antle could still be convicted of conspiring to sell even if the agreement to purchase was lawful.
The Supreme Court of Virginia unanimously affirmed the Court of Appeals on the purchasing counts and reversed it on the conspiracy counts, dismissing all four underlying indictments. On the purchasing question, the Court applied strict construction of penal statutes, emphasizing that other provisions of Title 29.1 expressly prohibit both “sale” and “purchase” of certain wildlife, and that the General Assembly’s deliberate omission of purchase language from Code § 29.1-564 must be given effect. The penalty provision in Code § 29.1-567 may imply that purchasing is covered, but a penalty statute cannot supply a prohibition that the underlying criminal statute does not contain.
On the conspiracy counts, the Court held that the indictments were fatally flawed because they charged Antle with conspiring to “sell, offer for sale, purchase, or offer to purchase” lion cubs — thereby permitting the jury to convict based on an agreement to engage in conduct (purchasing) that is not itself a criminal offense. Because the indictments impermissibly included lawful conduct as a basis for the conspiracy, the convictions could not stand and the indictments were dismissed.