Friday, January 18, 2008

Tiger and Piglets


The pictures are real, but the accompanying explanation in most emails about a mother tiger in California being given piglets to ease her through a depression stemming from the loss of her own cubs is fiction.
The images displayed above were taken in 2004 at the Sriracha Tiger Zoo in Chonburi, Thailand. Although the Sriracha Tiger Zoo hosts one of the world's most successful tiger breeding programs, unlike most western zoos it also offers circus- and carnival-like shows, exhibits, and interactions, including (as evidenced here) the mixture of adults and young of quite different species in the same enclosures. As described by the AWI Quarterly a publication of the Animal Welfare Institute: The Sriracha Tiger Zoo, an hour outside of Bangkok, Thailand, is truly an amazing place. Boasting more than 400 tigers, a handful of Asian elephants, piles of crocodiles, camels, snakes and other exotic animals, the zoo has some intriguing, yet troubling exhibits.

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