Tiger Kingdom - The Good And The Bad

 Seeing animals in captivity had never bothered me before, I'd been to the zoo more than a few times and always loved seeing the animals but when I came to this place, more so because everyone else in my group was and not necessarily because I wanted to something hit a nerve. It has never bothered me to see animals caged up and I think it was mostly to do with the fact that there was no human interaction. They were able to do their own thing even if it was a restricted space. But it was the idea that they were being poked and prodded as they lay there not considering how they were lying so still and patient. Well trained?  When you get to the entrance you're faced with a few options, run in the opposite direction (I joke I joke)

The Facts

You have the option to see all the different sized tigers or you can see each size individually. We chose to see the smallest out of the options of smallest (2-3 months) small (4-8 months) medium (9-12 months) and big (13-30 months) it ranges from 620bht for the smallest to 420bht for the biggest. They also do multiple ones for discounted rates. 

There is a LOT of speculation over the use of drugs in these tigers and you only have to take a quick look at the first few reviews on trip advisor to see this. However compare this place to the tiger temple, they don't use chains on the Tigers which is a massive plus. I'm not about to argue whether I think they use drugs in this place or not but I could see pretty clearly that the largest tigers didn't seem happy. They had the ones that weren't interacting with humans which were running around their cages and playing, they looked at least happy despite the fact they were behind cages, yet the tigers in the enclosure being poked and prodded by people were far from happy, fed up I'd say.And this is where the argument lies, the biggest tigers clearly weren't happy. We saw the Smallest Tigers, whether it was because they were so small they didn't know any different but they were playing with us and one even decided to crawl all over me. For this it was worth the visit, I genuinely believed the smallest tigers were actually happy, they had been looked after well and it is definitely something that you need to see for yourself and make up your own mind. 

Next: Doi Suthep and Elephants