Of all the brochures that was overwhelming me at the Chiang Mai airport upon arrival, one really stood out. It was the one for the Tiger Kingdom, because the photos in the brochure were simply unbelievable. CUDDLE WITH TIGERS! And not just baby tigers, but fully grown ones as well! It all seemed too good to be true. How is it possible? Aren't they endangered? How do they keep such calmness? What's the deal?
Further reading emphasizes "We do not drug or sedate our tigers. They are raised in captivity and are used to humans. They appear to be sleepy all the time because they are nocturnal by nature...." Hmmmm.... this sounds even more suspicious!
After doing a quick search on Google, there is no real conclusion whether the tigers are drugged or not. However simply from ethics stand point, this is also an interesting topic, just like whether Zoos do more good than harm. In this case, the Tiger kingdom all started many years ago when a rich man was given a tiger cub found abandoned. That's really hard to believe. Anyways, the internet story went on to say that since people started to ship found tiger cubs to him and as he got more of them, he had to find a way to sustain the ownership, therefore this commercialized theme park where the tigers are the adventurous rides!
Me on the other hand thinking that there aren't many tigers left in the world. Any way to keep them alive is probably better than leaving them dead. So I went.
There are different prizes to take photos with different size cats, with the smallest the most expensive and the largest the least expensive. I wonder why.... of course I went for the baby. Other than it being cute, I want to leave the cage alive and in one piece.
The wait was long because they gave each group lots of time to be with the cubs. There were rules of dos and don'ts. Do not touch the tiger's head. Do not hold its paws. Touch only the belly(they love it). Don't get in the tiger's face(adult ones). I thinks many of these rules are for obvious reasons and I choose to respect them.
All in all.... HOW DOES BABY TIGER FUR FEEL LIKE????????????????????????
Actually not nearly as soft as I'd expect from a cub of any kind. It feels a bit rough by baby animal standard. Tiger cubs aren't as chubby as puppies and so it's not as soft. It's also not as playful as regular puppies and do tend to want to nap. This is where I was wondering if this whole business of entertaining humans is really a torture for them.
Anyways, I got to CUDDLE WITH TIGER CUBS!
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