Wanderlust Pocket #4 Tiger Kingdom 🐯

in #travel7 years ago (edited)

Hello Steemit Friends

I am with my favorite animals today!. As you might know... I am a big fan of the cat family. My first pet was a cat but where I am today is a place filled with big cats !!!

Tiger Kingdom

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The Tiger Kingdom is a new attractions in the Kathu area a part of Phuket.They open everyday from 9am-6pm. It's really close to where I live and right next-door to this place is a Go-Cart track. You can spend your morning or afternoon getting both activities in if you want. At Tiger Kingdom, you can get up close with real live fully grown tigers. These are the options at Tiger Kingdom.

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Tigers at Tiger Kingdom are raised by their trainers since young. The trainer employ to take care and gain trust and encouragement to train these big cats and over time the Big Cat are use to human and often see us as one of the family.

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In Tiger Kingdom, They have many staffs and all are well-trained and experienced to take care of these wild animals and safety for visitors.
As I went in to touch my baby tiger I was surrounded by 3 male staff to take care of both the tiger and myself.

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Here is my ticket: 1,300 Baht to spend 15 minutes with my tiger. Smallest size they have!.

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How To touch them

Our Big Cats are handled and petted everyday by visitors , so even the roughest of petting will not bother these Big Cats. It’s normal to them, if you touch them too gently though ,it will feel ticklish and irritated, especially to a sleeping tiger. The best way is to cuddle and touch the cat firmly to make it feel comfortable.
They also mentioned not to touch the head, face and paws area as they are sensitive to those area.

Dos And Donts
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We were asked to wash out hands and place our shoes in lockers, wearing slippers into the petting area.
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My Tiger name is BaiBou in Thai means Lotus flower leaves. She is such a playful cat and she was moving around all the time. The cat here looks healthy and happy.

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There are also bigger sized tigers.

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They have a pool for themselves !!!

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Are these tigers drugged?

Most visitors came and spend short time in Tiger Kingdom. Most people see that the cats are sleeping but what they don't know is cats are cats and they sleep up to 18 hours a day. I am also told that these cat do not have a fully tiger instinct until they are up to 2-3 years old. At a younger age they are trainable and do what human tells them. After a certain age they are sent up north to a big forest area to spend their wild life.

There's a nice waiting area with food and snacks for visitors!.

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Also a nice gift shop with all things tigers !!! So cute !!

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I had a lovely time here today. In high season from November to February I heard that it is packed here so I chose the right time to visit during this time. !!

Thank you for your comments and upvotes

Much love,Suzana ❤️

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Not bad i think so :) Looks like small cute cat : )

Having checked your posts for a while I finally decided to follow you, so much beauty and great content deserves that :-)

Thank you so much for your kind words and support :)

You are very welcome

my dearest pleasure

beautiful images and really beautiful location...
2 suggestions from my side...

  1. try to watermark your pics...
  2. join foap and try to sell your photos there...

keep up the good work :D

Thank you very much for your suggestions :) I will definitely do that

wow @suerisue what a place for animal lovers, I always wanted to touch tigers. I loved your post and also started to following you hoping to see some more posts of these kind.

"After a certain age they are sent up north to a big forest area to spend their wild life."

Sorry, I have bad news for you. They are most likely killed and sold off for their skin and bones. A tiger born captive does not learn all of the things it needs to know and cannot survive in the wild. The same thing happens in Africa with the lions in the petting zoos.

WHY PETTING CUBS LEADS TO ABUSE

Tiger Selfies Are Cruel. Here's Why

Thank you for speaking out against that! I totally agree!

People are tricked into this with all of the friendly faces and cute cubs. Even many of the employees of these places fall for it. Kevin Richardson, the "Lion Whisper", was just one such person. After working at one of these petting zoos for a while, he started to figure out what was going on, and realised with horror that he was unwittingly helping the trophy industry. He promptly left and started rescuing captive lions. He is a vocal campaigner against this sort of thing. Follow his social media, it is very informative.

I am very sorry to hear that.... I am an animal lover and i cherish every life. I know that they are many cruelty happening and we want to prevent this the best we can. Please do not assume that this is happening everywhere. Yes it is sad that at the moment that many beautiful creatures are held captivity and dont have the freedom to live fully in the wild. As you might not know that Thailand is still very uneducated in this area and if we just let these animal lose they will likely be killed by villagers and locals anyways. We are still in the process to acknowledging the people and this is an option to keep these animals safe. As a third world country, we are slower at informing knowledge to the majority. You can not compare everything to the western world.

It is harsh to assume that the are just killed after, yes it has happend before but i am quite certain that not that this case. They are sent up to a big place of forest and adapt and continue living their lives. This post is not to upset or cause any problems with anyone's believes, i am sorry if it made you uncomfortable in anyways. I have the best intention with these incredible Tigers.

I know it is not your intent to hurt them, and this is the problem, these petting zoos use your good intentions for their profit. People simply do not want to believe that the place they visited could do this.

Think about it. These animals are never meant to come into contact with humans unless to eat us. Their babies are cared for by their mother, not kept awake all day by people playing with them. The babies want their mothers, not humans.

How long do these babies remain cute and pettable? 6 months to a year before they start to be come too big and potentially dangerous. Therefore they are "released" "somewhere." Notice that the information is very vague. That is a lot of tigers "released" into the "wild" every year.

Then there are mothers and the father that is kept captive in cages for their whole lives, just to produce babies for people to play with. Tigers are meant to run free in the forest, hunting.

Your good intentions are being used for someone's profit and ultimately the animal's abuse.

Please know, I believe your good intentions, but you have to look closer at this industry and discover that you and these animals are being used.

Simply do a search for "canned tiger hunting" and start reading. You will come to realise the horrible truth about this industry.

http://www.christinabush.com/cannedhunting.html

I did a search for "Tiger Kingdom canned hunging" and came up with this article.

EXPOSED! Thailand’s Tiger Kingdom Is No Sanctuary for Animals

I am sorry but I cannot support this, I was in Thailand too and when I heard about the tiger park I did some research on my own. The tigers are definitely drugged (at least the adult ones) and even if they weren't I think it's wrong to pay for keeping these beautiful beings in captivity. I think it's not helpful for conscious tourism to promote these places like this. I was also looking for elephant parks that treat the elephants right. The only one I really liked to support with my money was the Elephant nature park near Chiangmai. They buy the often injured and abused elephants from the other parks. There you can really see what tourism does to the animals. You can also get in contact, feed them, take a bath with them. But there is no spanking or riding.
Please be aware of what you promote. It can cause a lot of suffering.

@suerisue Amazing job! Followed.

From what you say it sounds like the animals are looked after. But i can't help but worry for them 😅 i really hope they have a good life there!

@suerisue Amazing job! Followed.

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