Comments on: Thailand’s Tiger Temple Sues Conservationists

By: Catherine Wentworth

Catherine Wentworth — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:22:22 +0000

Martyn, when you wrote that post I had only attended the temple the once. At that time, I was fairly sure that the tigers were drugged (and said as much in your comments). But the morning visit was a different experience, so…

In the report from Care for the Wild International, they mentioned that drugging tigers was an issue they watched out for, but they came up with a negative.

I can only assume that there has been countless vets (visiting and training) at the temple. And I do wonder about their opinion…

By: Martyn

Martyn — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:42:46 +0000

Catherine as you know I have visited the Tiger Temple and I left the Temple totally undecided as to whether the tigers were drugged or not. They did seem fairly lively on my visit and if pushed I’d say no they weren’t under the influence of narcotics….but.

Monks against conservationists in Thailand, I’ve got a good idea where the courts might stand on that one. The Tiger Temple has been around for a while now and my guess is its got a lot of visitors still to pass through its gates.
.-= Martyn´s last blog ..Nightmare Flights =-.

By: Catherine Wentworth

Catherine Wentworth — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 05:25:30 +0000

Talen, the answer I got from the temple is that it is hot in the afternoon, and in the heat of the day tigers sleep. That makes sense, but during my first trip the tigers couldn’t keep their heads up even. And in the wild, they wouldn’t last long.

But… I am not an expert, so who knows what it normal for tigers raised in temples.

I did talk with a volunteer vet at the temple, but the staff are noticeably wary about answering questions. One of the long time volunteers is the manager of a zoo in Canada. I emailed him to open a dialogue… but no reply.

‘The court case should be interesting with the sanctuary on offense’

Oh yes. Thailand is not the place to run around ruining reputations. You can have personal opinions, but they’d better be marked as such. But if there is a loss of revenue, does it matter if it is personal opinion or not? Do you know for sure?

By: Talen

Talen — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 05:03:55 +0000

This is very interesting news Catherine. It’s hard to say what is really going on but with what I’ve seen around Thailand from other places and parks there is always some sort of drugging going on and I wouldn’t doubt that at least during some period of the Tiger sanctuaries existence they too have drugged animals.

I really hope the accusations of drugging and abuse aren’t true but if they are I hope someone steps up to do something.

The court case should be interesting with the sanctuary on offense…Hopefully the accused have their ducks in a row because if they don’t it will go badly for them and fast.