Is Thailand serious about curbing trade in tigers?
Three months after the famous Tiger Temple was shut down, the fate of the big cats seized is uncertain. Meanwhile, anti-trafficking groups suspect legal zoos and illegal farms continue to feed trade in the beasts, dead or alive
With a ferocious roar, Pu Ying leaps at the man who just shot her – but succeeds only in striking the bars of her enclosure. After 15 minutes of confused groaning, shaking her head under the effect of a powerful cocktail of ketamine and diazepam, the young tiger falls asleep. Veterinarians cover her eyes with a piece of cloth, place her on a stretcher and conduct medical tests.
“We are checking the heartbeat and the blood pressure, and also taking a few samples for further DNA analysis,” explains one of the team members.
Pu Ying wakes up about 15 minutes later inside a small cage loaded on a truck, dizzy and clearly terrified.
IN LATE MAY, THE Thai Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plants Conservation (DNP) ordered the seizure of 137 tigers at Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua, in Kanchanaburi province, a three-hour drive east of Bangkok. Hundreds of police officers and military personnel gathered at the Tiger Temple, as it has become known, armed with tranquilliser guns. The round-up would last six days.
On the second day, officials gathered journalists to show them what they called a “gruesome discovery”: 40 dead cubs in a kitchen freezer and 30 in jars and bottles, suspended in a vinegar solution. Some of the cubs had been one or two days old when they died; many had been unborn.
In truth, however, it was not much of a discovery. DNP officials had looked into that freezer on many previous occasions, according to several testimonies.