There will soon be a report released detailing the state of 37 facilities across Thailand. Collating all the information is a rather complicated task and is currently taking longer than anticipated! Not only will it cover a number of welfare issues present in many Thai facilities, but it will also give an estimate in the number of captive tigers in Thailand.
As part of our work to make things better for tigers in Thailand, we had to make a trip around Thailand to visit the facilities for ourselves. During February and March 2017 we made a trip to 37 facilities in Thailand that hold tigers. This ranged from the excellent ZPO run zoos such as Ubon Ratchathani to the downright awful, Sri Racha Tiger Zoo.
At each facility we assessed welfare; living conditions, cleanliness, inbreeding etc. of the tigers. We also made records of how many tigers were observed but also asked the staff how many tigers were actually living at the facility. These were compared with the records provided to CITES by the Thai government. Suffice it to say that many numbers do not match.
It was an eye opening experience, not just because of some of the horrific living conditions and entertainment processes these tigers are put through but also because there are some exceptional places in Thailand with outstanding tiger facilities.
A report will be released soon detailing all the information we collected.