Monks and tigers in close proximity? The horrifying truth behind Thailand's tiger temple scandal

Wat Paluan Tabu in Kanchanaburi Province in western Thailand is well-known. It is called the " Tiger Temple ". Unlike common Thai Buddhist temples, the gate of this temple is a tiger head with a bloody mouth opened wide, and there are hundreds of tigers in the temple.

Under the Buddhist temple, the ferocious tigers are as docile as kittens, allowing the monks to stroke and comb their fur. Tourists also come here to take photos with the beasts. However, behind the harmony between humans and animals, there is a bloody transaction .

Monks and tigers at Wat Paluang Tabu | MichaelJanich / Wikimedia Commons

The Miraculous Tiger Temple

In the eyes of outsiders, Wat Parang Tabu is a miracle - the Buddha once cut off his flesh to feed the tiger, and now the monks are unarmed but fearless, and they can subdue the mighty tiger only with wisdom and majesty . This seems to be the best embodiment of the supreme Buddhist law to save all sentient beings.

According to the temple, this wonderful story began in February 1999. At that time, villagers in the surrounding area sent a tiger cub whose mother had been killed by poachers. Not long after, law enforcement agencies sent several smuggled cubs, four males and four females. These tigers grew up and mated, forming the basis of all the tigers in Parang Tabu Temple .

The gate of Wat Phra Luang Tabu is a tiger's mouth｜thailandtourismdirectory.go.th

At its peak, there were more than 100 tigers living here . The monks claimed that the tigers no longer ate meat, but instead ate dog food, so they would not break the precept of killing. Facing this wonder, all the tourists were amazed. This small temple in the countryside quickly became famous internationally and became one of the business cards of Thailand tourism .

In 2006, the story of Parang Tabu Temple was featured in Time Magazine, which praised it as " the best classroom for peaceful coexistence "; the BBC of the United Kingdom also came to shoot a documentary. At this moment, the reputation of the temple reached its peak.

However, all the honors came to an abrupt end in December 2014. A veterinarian who resigned from the Tiger Temple submitted a large amount of evidence to the police, claiming that there was serious criminal activity in the Tiger Temple - monks smuggled tigers to third countries through Laos, and each tiger could bring an average profit of 5 million baht.

Thai police seized two tiger skins and other animal products from a truck trying to leave the Tiger Temple | STR/AP

This news quickly attracted the attention of Thailand's top leaders. On February 3, 2016, Thai police raided the Tiger Temple . Although they were blocked and unable to enter the temple, they accidentally discovered a hornbill locked in a cage, revealing the tip of the iceberg of temple crimes.

On May 30, the Thai police and military organized a joint law enforcement team of more than 500 people and finally successfully entered the Paluang Tabu Temple. After a carpet search, the police found a total of 40 frozen tiger cubs , 20 tiger carcasses soaked in alcohol , 2 complete tiger skins , and thousands of tiger teeth , tiger bone amulets and other tiger products.

Police seized tiger cub carcasses and other tiger products from the temple｜Reuters

This news quickly caused an uproar in the local area. For many years, Parang Tabu Temple has been known as a model of harmony between man and nature , but when the details of the case were gradually revealed, the bloody truth shocked everyone.

A complete scandal

In fact, Wat Phra Luang Ta Bu has always been controversial. In order to enter the Tiger Temple, each visitor must buy a ticket worth 600 baht, and taking a close photo with the tigers will cost at least 2,000 baht. It is estimated that just by selling tickets, Wat Phra Luang Ta Bu can reap millions of baht in profit every year .

Foreign tourists taking photos with tigers at Wat Paluang Tabu｜Dmitri1999 / Wikimedia Commons

Parang Tabu Temple claims that the tigers have been inspired by Buddhism and will not hurt people. But in fact, the monks add a lot of sedatives to the food of the captive tigers to keep them docile. These drugs have severely damaged their bodies, and few tigers can live to a normal lifespan.

According to internal volunteers, once a tiger has health problems, it will be secretly killed by the temple . They will sell tiger bones, tiger meat and other products on the black market, and replace it with another tiger to cover up the truth.

According to Thai law, all tigers belong to the government, and private individuals must obtain relevant licenses to keep them. The reason why Wat Paluang Tabu has been able to stand for many years is actually because it is disguised as a Buddhist forbidden area - in Buddhist tradition, tigers are regarded as the incarnation of Manjusri, representing strength and fearlessness . They circumvented the regulations in this way, but in fact they used tigers as a tool to make money and conducted bloody and secretive transactions.

Buddhist monks have traditionally been seen as protectors of nature, but in the Tiger Temple case, the temple has played an ignominious role. | MichaelJanich / Wikimedia Commons

The "Thailand Tiger Temple Case" is a complete scandal, but there are deeper factors behind it. Tigers are one of the most beloved animals. As animals unique to Asia, they appear in various cultures. After entering the 21st century, thanks to the rise of the modern environmental protection movement, all 13 countries where tigers are distributed have listed them as protected animals , and the circulation of tiger products has been expressly prohibited. Poaching tigers is a serious crime .

However, most of these regulations only protect the survival of wild tigers, but leave a loophole for the use of captive tigers. With the rise of wildlife tourism, captive tigers have become a "commodity" , not only in Asia, where they are native, but also in North America and South Africa, where a number of attractions under the banner of tigers have emerged.

Taking photos with tigers is a common business model - excited tourists, under the guidance of keepers, get close to tigers, take selfies, and hug tiger cubs. Such photos have received a lot of likes and reposts on social media. The former king of beasts has become a puppet in the era of traffic .

Invisible Whip

Compared with common circus performances, the photo-taking seems harmless. The tigers do not need to risk injury by completing various difficult movements under the whip and scolding; instead, they lie lazily on the ground and allow tourists to stroke and take photos, just like petting a cat.

In fact, the whips in circuses are displayed brightly under the lights, while the whips in tourist attractions are hidden in invisible corners . In order to keep tigers docile, some tourist attractions add a lot of tranquilizers to tiger food, making the tigers drowsy and at the mercy of others, and not attacking tourists. Staff sometimes poke their faces with sticks or whip them directly to achieve the effect of taking photos.

Hundreds of "photos" a day cause great stress and harm to tigers | World Animal Protection Association

The barren captive environment is also a torture for tigers . Wild tigers can roam more than ten kilometers in one night. Their foot pads are soft and flexible, and they make no sound when they quietly approach their prey. In a captive environment, tigers can only be locked in limited iron cages, endure ubiquitous hunger and hard concrete floors, and even be tied with short iron chains. The small and boring living environment often causes serious stereotyped behaviors .

Tiger cubs born in captivity are usually taken away from their mothers after 3-4 weeks so that the female tigers can go into estrus again in the next few weeks. Captive tigers can usually give birth to two litters a year, while wild tigers reproduce once every two to three years on average.

The reason for breeding tiger cubs in such large numbers is largely to meet the needs of the tourism industry . Compared with the mighty adult tigers, cute tiger cubs are more popular with tourists. For example, in a tourist attraction called Tiger Kingdom in Thailand, the price for taking photos with tiger cubs is $40 per 10 minutes, while the price for taking photos with adult tigers is only $28.

Taking photos with tiger cubs is a common tourist activity | Tuchong Creative

When these tiger cubs grow up and are no longer so lovable, they will be sent to rescue organizations or sold to other attractions , repeating the fate of their parents. Some organizations will even kill the extra tiger cubs , soak them in wine or freeze them, and sell them on the black market as tonics, as evidenced by the large number of tiger cub carcasses found in the Parang Tabu Temple.

The darkness that has not yet been exposed

According to a survey by World Animal Protection, with the booming tourism industry, the number of captive tigers in Thai tourist attractions soared from 623 to 830 between 2010 and 2016, but the number of wild tigers in the country dropped to less than 160. Due to rampant poaching, tigers in some protected areas have disappeared in the sound of gunfire, such as the famous Khao Yai National Park, where the last tiger was photographed by infrared cameras in 2002.

Captive tigers seem to be able to slow down poaching, but many cases have shown that captive breeding linked to commercial interests does not bring protection to wild tigers . On the contrary, once the pressure on protection is reduced, almost zero-cost poaching will put wild tigers into greater crisis.

An investigation report by environmental organization Cee4life shows that half of the original eight tigers in the Tiger Temple were "wild-caught" wild tigers. When the report was published, the wild tiger named Sangtewan in the picture had been caged in extremely poor conditions for nearly 10 years｜Cee4life

Parang Tabu Temple once claimed that the temple's first tigers were cubs rescued by villagers; but soon there were media reports that the so-called cubs who had lost their relatives' protection were actually collected from the wild by local villagers hired by the temple . It may be the illegal behavior of Parang Tabu Temple that eventually led to the complete disappearance of the breeding population in the nearby famous Sai Yok National Park.

The "Thailand Tiger Temple Case" is just one case that has been exposed to the public. There are many more unknown dark cases that have yet to be exposed. According to statistics, the value of global wildlife tourism is as high as 334 billion US dollars each year. Many attractions are in the name of zoos or rescue centers . Although there are no blatant circus performances, they still keep animals in captivity in poor conditions, abuse animals , and even destroy wild populations, while making profits under the banner of protecting animals.

The Tiger Temple in Thailand has also attracted many celebrities. Although taking photos with tigers can bring attention, the commercial chain behind it is not good for animal protection.｜thesun.co.uk

Protecting tigers requires legislation and supervision at the government level, the conscience of business organizations, and the attitude of each of us is also crucial. As an ordinary tourist, refusing to watch tiger performances and refusing to take photos with tigers is all we can do to protect tigers.

Author: Su Yuxiang

Editor: Mai Mai

This article comes from GuokrNature (ID: GuokrNature)

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