Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua

The Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua, also called in Occident, Tiger Temple, is a place of Buddhist cult located in Thailand, North-West of Kanchanaburi (Sai Yok district), It has the particularity to practice breeding of different animals, amongst which tigers. It is open to tourism.

Breeding of animals began in 1994, but the temple only began to receive felines in 1999, when a wounded baby tiger was rescued by a monk; the baby died soon after. The monks of the temple tell that most tigers kept in the sanctuary would have been brought after their mothers had been killed by poachers, or given by persons who possessed one as pet and who wished to get rid of it. In 2007, more than 21 babies were born, in 2009 the total number of tigers was around 50, and in 2014, there were more than one hundred.
The detained sub-species are undetermined, as no DNA test has been done. One thinks that most are tigers from Indochina (Panthera tigris corbetti), except one named Mek, who is a Bengali Tiger (Panthera tigris tigris). Itis very probable, and even maintained by associations that most of them are hybrids .
The big cats spend a lot of time caged, as the temple only opens at noon and closes at 4 pm daily.
They are fed with chicken meat, prepared beef, and cat food. The meat is cooked in order to drive away the taste for blood, which might excite their predatory instincts or also bring  fowl plague. But cooking destroys some essential nutriments, such as taurine, therefore the cat food.
In addition to the monks, international volunteers and local staff are there to take care of the animals; They wash them, and walk them on leash once a day to a nearby quarry. First they could roam free, but since the increase of the number of tourists , they are chained for obvious security reasons.

Entrance to the temple is 600 Baht (13,45 €). The temple welcomes 300 to 600 tourists a day; There are departures to Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua from Bangkok and Kanchanaburi. Visitor are permanently escorted when they wish to pet the tigers and, if one of the felines gets agitated, a monk is ready to interfere to restrain him. Otherwise, tourists can observe them from 10 meters away. For 5 000 Baht (111,90 €), visitors can help the volunteers in morning exercises imposed to the tigers, and for 1 000 Baht, bottle feed the young tigers.
According to the temple staff, a tiger’s daily maintenance costs 100 USD. All around the temple, urns are at disposition of those who want to make a donation to the temple, as the team searches for founds to finance a new project, called “Tiger Island”, that would allow the tigers to live in a more natural environment and to learn to hunt with an intention to eventually free them back in nature.