The outbreak at Tiger Kingdom in Chiang Mai began in early February, with authorities initially attributing the deaths to canine distemper – a virus carried by dogs but often fatal to big cats. A deeper investigation is under way, with some medical experts suspecting contaminated food may have been the cause.
The park – a favourite with foreign visitors from China, India and Russia, especially – promotes itself as offering a rare chance to take photos and interact up close with tigers and their cubs.
It follows a business model seen across Thailand’s tourist areas, but one that has also courted controversy for breeding wild animals only to confine them for their entire lives in cages, brought out for Instagrammable moments costing visitors upwards of US$30.
“This tragedy highlights the extreme vulnerability of captive wildlife facilities to infectious disease,” the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand said in a statement.
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