Tiger Smuggling in Thailand ;-(

It's sad to see that with something like only 6000 tigers left in the wild that even though Thailand has with 13 other countries agreed to tighten controls to stamp out tiger smuggling that on arresting a driver carrying a load of 16 tigers over the border that his sentence was only 40,000 baht (or 4 years in jail) but as no doubt he's only a driver and not involved at a higher level he is of course refusing to "name names", so can no doubt expect his fine to be paid immediately by his bosses to ensure his speedy release rather than them risk him talking.

And when the bosses of the smuggling operation seem to be paying the likes of their lowly drivers around 15,000 baht to risk doing a run and the fine is only one and half times that if caught, which will no doubt be paid immediately for you on your arrest it seems that Thailand is not perhaps as serious about stopping the illegal trade in live Tigers as they would have us believe :-(

Source :http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20111464

[arsenal]

NIrish. Sadly your numbers are very optimistic with general estimates of wild tigers at around the three thousand mark. Those tiger cubs are worth a small fortune in the Chinese medicine/restaurant industry. A 'penis dish' alone can fetch up to $5700.

I don't have any proof but I am convinced the Tiger Zoo at Sriracha is actually a farm.

Really :-( I didn't know that to be honest and just took those figures from the article as it was the BBC so it MUST be true (JOKE !) but on doing a quick google of various sites such as the WWF etc I see you are absolutely correct about that, that's so sad, I mean what is it with people that they can't see what damage something like this is doing and the very soon to be fatal results of their ( now totally discredited) medical benefits of eating and thus creating a market for such endangered / beautiful creatures. Humans really know how to fuck things up and unfortunately can do it so quickly and callously it's scary sometimes ! So sad :-(

And re the tiger farm I think those allegations have been bouncing around for quite some time now but I guess what with it being Thailand and money talking etc thats going to be a hard one to prove on way or the other - I should add for the record of course that the charitable organisation / monks behind the venture absolutely deny such suggestions and state they are 100% above board and their records are there to be checked etc - even so some western Animal welfare Charities don't seem to share that confidence all the times either it seems :-(


Edit - someone has kindly pointed out to me via PM that it way have been the "Zoo" and not the tiger temple that the programme I had watched about the above was focusing on, to be honest I can't remember which of the two it was now but I do know the general gist of the show was the tourists should give good thought to the logic of visiting places where animals are displayed / used etc to ensure they ARE meeting the highest standards in animal welfare and following correct export restrictions etc.

[joe552]

who knew you were a pussy lover, NIrish Guy? :occasion9:

I've read various reports about the mistreatment of animals at these places, so personally would avoid visiting them.

[billy2bs]

Ya Tiger has been lousy since his wife left him. He cant win anything.

[christianpfc]

I don't have any proof but I am convinced the Tiger Zoo at Sriracha is actually a farm.

This is a sad topic, but that sentence made me chuckle.

?? Why Christian ? It's not really funny at all - surely ?? And I know you don't mean the topic per se as that goes without saying - but just the actual words ? really ?, they really aren't funny in any way that I can see ? - unless I'm totally missing something perhaps ? - or perhaps it's just that Im not German which maybe due to a language issue etc may makes them HILARIOUS to you and I'm just not seeing it ? - but whatever it is, do pray tell ?? :-)

[christianpfc]

I find the idea of running a Tiger "farm" and displaying it as a "zoo" to the public, funny, even though the fact is sad.

It' the choice of words, "farm" opposed to "zoo", which completely changes the purpose, but to the outsider the venue looks the same, which I find funny.

I can't explain it any further, and fortunately I don't have to. (In school and in army I got into mild trouble because I was laughing - or rather suppressed giggling or chuckling - about things my teacher or superior did not find funny*. Fortunately, these times are over, I can laught at whatever I want. That includes jokes about gays, women, disabled people, racist jokes, pedophile jokes among others.)

*"Private First Class [my family name], Do you think this is funny?" - "No, Sir!" - "Then why are you laughing?" - "I don't know, Sir!"

[Neal]

:sign5: You are goofy and silly and wierd

[christianpfc]

I might be weird, not "wierd".



http://s3.amazonaws.com/theoatmeal-img/comics/misspelling/weird.png



http://theoatmeal.com/comics/misspelling

Oh don't get me wrong Christian it's definitely a case of "Titter a lot" not "Titter ye not" ! :-)

I was just genuinely wondering what made it funny to you as perhaps an insight as to what makes you tick from a humour perspective and I'm glad to see that even after your kind description of what made it "funny" I'm absolutely still none the wiser :-) But as it takes all sorts I'm glad you got a giggle out of it at least :-)

My trouble is school was when they asked "what are you laughing at I inevitably gave in and told them and as it was usually something like "your shoes don't go with your tie and your hair's a mess" ( I know how gay ! ) I was then whisked off to the vice principal for a damned good thrashing with a cane - and it took the fools 5 years to work out I was LOVING IT ALL ! lol ( I am joking, thankfully they weren't allowed to even touch a child - as here in Ireland we just left that up to the Priests of course !