 Kris Flint - Seed Girl | All Comments |
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| 11th February 2009 Seed Girl | Enlightening - From: The tale of the Tiger Temple Thanks very much Jane - I really appreciate your response and passion about this topic that I am clearly not as educated about. I've accepted your comment so that others can also read your words. As an animal lover and a vegetarian I empathise with all creatures. I would not want to encourage suffering for them on any level. Thanks again for the info and the enlightening links! |
| 30th January 2009 Jane | Tiger Temple misconceptions - From: The tale of the Tiger Temple I appreciate your take on the Tiger Temple and you seem aware of some of the issues, but you are under a huge misconception: the Tiger Temple is in no way a 'conservation effort'. Ironically, far from being 'rescued from poachers' as the temple Abbot puts it, the first 10 tigers were bought from private dealers (i.e. poached from the wild). The Abbot has recently admitted this to the press when put under pressure, but visitors to the temple are still told the fairytale version. There is also evidence of tigers being exchanged with farmed tigers from a tiger farm in Laos. Tiger farms are, as you can imagine, horrendous places. The Temple's tigers are allowed to interbreed indiscriminately (as the Abbot states, 'tourists like cubs') despite being of different subspecies. You stated that the cubs you spent time with had been 'separated from their mother' - this is done regularly so that tourists can cuddle the cubs without the mother tiger intervening; this is unnatural, cruel and exploitative. This is not conservation. They will never be released to the wild, neither will their offspring - it would be illegal, dangerous and actually detrimental to wild tiger populations to do so! The purpose of the Temple is to provide a tourist attraction. With the greatest respect, please reconsider your blog. Following repeated complaints from tourists and volunteers working at the temple of tigers being shockingly mistreated there, Care for the Wild International (CWI) undertook an intensive two year investigation. The resulting CWI report reveals illegal wildlife trade, animal cruelty, false conservation claims and visitor safety risks at the Temple. You can read the report at: http://www.careforthewild.com/projects.asp?detail=true&I_ID=580&mypage=Reports You can view the letter sent by the International Tiger Coalition to the Thai authorities protesting about the Tiger Temple here: http://www.careforthewild.com/files/itc_letter_oct_08.pdf This issue has widespread media coverage: CWI's press release - "Illegal tiger trade, cruelty and human health hazards at famous tourist destination": http://www.careforthewild.com/files/tt_news_release%2020-06-08.pdf "Black market tigers linked to Thai Temple, Reports says" National Geographic News, 20 June 2008: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/06/080620-tiger-temple.html |
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