That photo costs about $17. The premium version, where the tiger’s head rests in your lap, goes for around $140. Selling these poses made Thailand’s Tiger Temple roughly $3 million a year, until police raided it in 2016 and pulled 40 dead tiger cubs out of a freezer.
Thailand has about 1,960 tigers locked in cages right now. Almost all of them are at places that sell tourist photos. The most recent Thai government count of wild tigers came back at 179 to 223. There are eight to ten times more tigers in the photo business than tigers out there hunting deer in the forest.
Police forced their way into the Tiger Temple in May 2016 and walked out with 137 live tigers. They also found 40 frozen cubs in a kitchen freezer. Twenty more cubs were floating in jars of preserving fluid. Authorities stopped a temple staff member trying to drive off the property with two whole tiger pelts, ten tiger fangs, and around 1,500 small good-luck charms made from tiger skin.
Speed breeding is what keeps the supply going. Mothers get their cubs taken at two to three weeks old. The females come back into heat much sooner and pop out another litter long before nature would let them. World Animal Protection investigators walked through Thai tiger parks and found half the cats they saw in cages smaller than a one-car garage. A wild tiger covers 10 to 20 miles in a single night.
Cubs work the photo line for a few months. They get passed from tourist to tourist hundreds of times a day. Most are declawed, which is exactly what it sounds like: amputating part of each toe so they cannot scratch a paying customer. Once a cub grows too big or starts pushing back, it is finished with the photo business and too expensive to feed.
The same animals start a second life as product. In 2007, Thailand signed an international treaty banning the sale of tiger parts. Other tiger countries signed too. Authorities still seized 641 tigers, dead or alive, in smuggling busts across Southeast Asia between 2000 and 2011. DNA tests traced 275 of those straight back to the same kind of farms that sell tourist photos. China and Vietnam are the destination, where the parts are sold as tiger bone wine, tiger skin rugs, and traditional medicine.
After the 2016 raid, the government took custody of all 147 rescued tigers. Eighty-six died within three years. Decades of speed breeding had inbred their bloodlines so badly that their immune systems were already gone by the time anyone tried to save them.
Never booking with @loveholidays again. Deposit paid. Free cancellation. Now I need to cancel a day later they want to charge me additional fees! So it’s not free cancellation then is it?!
Ppl will ignore these alarming photos, these should be ENOUGH for anyone to be questioned but since it’s Michael Jackson , it’s crickets, movie still make a billion , the world only cares about victims when it’s convenient for them , it’s sickening. Won’t be online as much for nw
@Harlequins Trying to redeem tickets I got through tickets for good and the link isn’t working and your office is closed until Tuesday! I’m going to lose the tickets
If a non-celebrity admitted to sleeping in the same bed as children, possessed naked images of underage boys, had an alarm system set up to alert him if anyone approached his bedroom and had multiple allegations from alleged victims … you wouldn’t doubt he was a predator.
I am appalled to hear about the 31 sloths who died under the “care” of the not yet opened Sloth World in Orlando.
These sloths — naturally solitary animals — were put in the worst conditions possible. They were taken from their natural habitats to a packed warehouse that wasn’t properly heated and allowed for the spread of deadly viruses, leading to a stress-induced death.
My office is looking into this tragedy, and we will coordinate with local officials to determine how to best move forward.
https://t.co/sk7m5bDjjJ
Donald Trump raped a 13-year-old child. She bit his penis. He punched her in the face. The FBI found the young girl’s story to be credible. Never stop talking about this. Post about it every day. We cannot allow these white supremacists to normalize child rape.
Han secuestrado 69 perezosos para meterlos en un zoo. 31 han muerto antes de llegar. Eso no es conservación, es una amenaza para toda una especie. Los zoos son negocios. Les importa una mierda los animales que condenan a vivir encerrados. No los visites. Acabemos con esto.
Whewwww, what a day its been, I finally got enough signal to post some videos of this elephant rescue happening all day today...it's been nearly 24 hours since this rescue began and we're still a few hours away from this poor elephant's ultimate freedom at Elephant Nature Park, but Lek and her team have been amazing helping keep her calm the entire trip as it's very confusing for elephants to be moved since they have PTSD from being moved earlier in their life and then treated so terribly at logging and riding camps...this time however, my @karmagawa birthday fundraiser elephant is on the way to a FAR better place and will no longer be forced to endure a life of abuse/cruelty, only freedom and kindness! Her whole life is about to change and hopefully she can learn that not all humans are evil...
We setup another fundraiser here: https://t.co/tPw680JhMF to help rescue more abused elephants as this is only my 2nd elephant rescue and there's SO MANY MORE to help so every donation counts and we really appreciate it!
Please retweet and help me get the word out: DO NOT RIDE ELEPHANTS AS TOURISTS UNKNOWINGLY SUPPORT AND FUND THIS CRUEL INDUSTRY, WE MUST MAKE EVERYONE AWARE AND HELP THESE HIGHLY INTELLIGENT BUT ALSO SADLY HEAVILY ABUSED ANIMALS!!
A man who tortured & killed cats faced over 40 years in prison. A judge gave him only 364 days & he walked free. This is not justice. Demand accountability now. #AnimalCruelty#Justice4Animals#NewJersey
https://t.co/YI42yJFc6l