Pig Races – Endearing Story Reveals Disturbing Find
What began as an endearing story in my search quickly transformed to one that was slightly troubling but possibly thought provoking, then became deeply disturbing. Read on …
Pig races at Sriracha Tiger Zoo. Photo REUTERS / Chaiwat Subprasom (Thailand)
Largest of its kind in the world, the Sriracha Tiger Zoo recently began training pigs to supplement its performing crocodiles and tiger breeding. Wide-eyed tourists come from far and wide for pig races where onlookers delight in the excitement watching pigs dash towards the finishing line. You pay a small fee to ‘bet’ on one of the pigs and if yours wins, you receive a small prize.
Pig Racing Sriracha Tiger Zoo
Visitors marvel over the calculating skills of pigs which can solve Mathematics such as add, subtract, multiply and divide problems in numerous languages such as Thai, English, Chinese, Vienamese, and Korean.
A pig runs through a burning hoop at Sriracha Tiger Zoo.
Photo REUTERS / Chaiwat Subprasom (Thailand)
Opening in April 23 1997, in Chon Buri Province, an hour outside of Bangkok, Thailand, the zoo is home for more than 200 Bengal tigers, 100,000 crocodiles, deer, wallabies, kangaroos, elephants, single hump camels, Peruvian guinea pigs, ostriches, and an aviary of exotic birds.
A pig plays with a tiger at Sriracha Tiger Zoo. Photo REUTERS / Chaiwat Subprasom
Photo Tai Ways Magazine
Apart from pig racing and circus acts, the zoo attempts its hand at shock factor for which visitors can visit the scorpion cave and take photos with the Scorpion Queen covered in more than 100 scorpions.
From Amusing to Troubling
The zoo has some intriguing yet disconcerting exhibits.
Photo Animal Welfare Institute
Visitors have the ‘pleasure’ of feeding milk to a young tiger on their lap. When a tiger grows restless, they’re brisked away to a holding area and quickly replaced with a fresh cub. A countless supply of animals are available to meet the demand for photos.
Photo REUTERS / Sukree Sukplang
Harmony amongst animals? The Sriracha Tiger Zoo boasts of families’ amusement where you can watch displays portraying how ‘different types of animals can stay together, such as mother pigs feeding baby tigers with her milk and a mother tigers looking after baby pigs — the only place in the world where you will find them.’
Photo Virtual Tourist
Photo Pattaya Mail
A glass room displays a farrowing crate encapsulating a pig lying on her side, feeding both her piglets and tiger cubs. Another glass room exhibits a female tiger who feeds piglets dressed in tiger print costumes. More incongruous displays were found elsewhere, where enclosures housed tigers, pigs, and dogs together.
Tigress Feeding Pigs and Vice-versa
From Slightly to Deeply Disturbing
Photo Happy Martin
Behind stage at the elephant show, Animal Welfare Institute witnessed chained elephants, tethered to the ground by a 2 foot chain, swaying back and forth. One elephant had a long deep scar across his ear and another across her trunk.
Photo BPunsrin
From the outside the tiger circus wasn’t much different than any other, but the AWI revealed that closer scrutiny bared the animals’ debilitation and fear. The animals waited in turn to perform behind a gated tunnel where keepers incessantly poked them with a steel pole through iron mesh. The animals in the show were smacked in the face with the pole regularly and most appeared to have severe weakness in their hind legs.
The AWI cites press reports that the Sriracha Tiger Zoo is also breeding tigers for commercial export. The Straits Times newspaper reported an investigation for allegedly breeding protected wildlife illegally. The zoo was implicated in a sale of 100 tigers to China where tiger parts are sought after for use in traditional Chinese medicines, despite prohibiting laws.
A seizure of over 400 tigers at Sriracha Zoo was enacted in 2005 pending an investigation and DNA analysis of the tigers to assess the legality of their origin. I was unable to find a conclusive final report on the seizure, however, you can read about the alarming report on export of the 100 tigers to China here.
Zoos in China have vehemently made claims that we must breed wildlife commercially to save it.
On October 20, 2004, AWI cites a report in the Bangkok Post about 23 tigers that were killed by avian influenza at a ‘private zoo’. Raw chicken carcasses were the staple food from a nearby poultry processing plant. Sriracha was temporarily shut down as a result.
Dozens more tigers were diagnosed with the virus — at least 80 to 100 died or were euthanized during the month long closure, and millions of chickens were destroyed. Read the report here.
Despite these episodes and allegations, visitors still herded to the zoo’s reopening with offers of free admission.
Copyright 2007 Life in the Fast Lane
Sources: Discovery 2007 and Animal Welfare Institute
Related stories:
Zoos Killing Healthy Tigers for Skin Trade
Lion + Tiger = Liger
It’s a Pig’s Life
Its unbelievable and downright sad! I wonder sometimes what is it that drives some people to do such things!
it is sad that many lack respect for animals n nature like this!
It goes far beyond sad, when you account for the ‘allegations’ in the sale of tigers to illegal markets for their meat, skin trade and body parts. Numerous reports are overwhelming in the validity of the accusations.
Tiger bone used in medicines sells for $115 per pound and more — as much as some villagers make in a year. Tiger genitalia is considered to be an aphrodisiac, a substance thought to contribute to sexual stamina.
The tiger is protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), yet these practices continue.
Thanks for adding my photo, I’m really pleased that it’s being used for a good cause.
It’s a shame you didn’t write more about the crocodile show because that is very sad. The crocodiles are literally pulled around by the tail until they snap at the handler and then the handle elicits applause for his daring mastery of the beast.
As you leave the arena you end up opposite the food vendors selling crocodile soup and kebabs too.
If you’d like more information about more animal abuse in Chiang Mai’s night safari theres a lot of sad articles about it online. You’ve also been lucky not to know about Dusit Zoo (Bangkok) which is a very sad experience unfortunately.
Keep up the great work, I’ve added yuor site to my feed list.
Best wishes,
Martin
Thanks Martin, it’s a great shot
It hadn’t occurred to me to investigate the crocodiles (hangs head in shame). Thanks for shedding some light on it.
So not only are the crocodiles abused, they’re fed to visitors as lunch! I think I’m about to be ill
Thanks for the tip on Chiang Mai’s night safari as well, I may very well do a future post on it.
And thanks for adding this site to your reader, love to hear that
horrifying Deborah……
I wonder how they would feel if they were abused in this way…..criminal …absolutely criminal !!!!
thanks for highlighting this story….
Hi Deborah,
Very engaging article, and terribly disturbing. Seems you have done some great reporting of an under-reported story. I’m adding you to my feeds, too!
Thanks Kim, I found it absolutely mortifying.
It began as a fun story that I was going to write about, but once I started digging into it with searches, I found a number of these issues. It just kept getting worse and worse as I delved into it. I could have gone even deeper, but I think we have uncovered what we need to know already.
Thanks Lynda. And thanks for adding me to your feeds!
I am thouroughly impresssed with your photography, you’re very talented
hi guys, love the fact you have made it public, its fab, the picyures are good, the elephnat shows are horrendous and so dam sad. Hve you heard of elephant nature park , chiang mai thailand?the place is amazing for rescused and abused elephants, ranging from land mine victims, blind, and pouching victims, they live in their own though out family groups and have 75 acres of scrub land a huge river and grass lands to roam through out the day. The medical treatment is fab and all the training is for medical benefit and no hocks, sticks or wepons used. Check out the website. im very interested in reserching the wildlife trade especially in thailand, tiger temple is also an awful place, even the elephnat hospitals are a joke with depressed elephants kept in handcuff chains all day with no quality of lie, no social interecation or natural groups.
I find it so hard to know what to do when you see cruel acts especially at the zoos, and wildlife parks and “conservation centres”! If i can help please email me id really appreciate it, i am a vet nurse by trade but its not just a job!thanks, shakira
crochunter4eva@hotmail.co.uk
i have tried to find up to date info about the so called “happy families” tigers and labradors in zoo cages, no animals should spend their lives in cages, and retrievers don´t belong in zoos, they are family pets….
i cannot get any answer from sri racha tiger zoo, as the origin of labradors interest me as well, owning the breed myself and wellfare od all animals is close to my heart. i´m a retired finnair stewardess in finland.
any info anyone, fotos anything. please
that has to be one of the funniest things i have EVER seen … hilarious !!