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There I stood in the stifling, humid air with my sister and mom. We were waiting in line for one of my most anticipated stops on our trip to Thailand, the Tiger Kingdom. The room was filled with numerous creaky, antiquated fans that slowly rotated, unsuccessfully attempting to make the room more comfortable for the tourists. Although I was sweating profusely, nothing could get me down. I was at the Tiger Kingdom; a sanctuary with a plethora of tigers that were raised for assisting the species’ conservation efforts.
After waiting in line for an hour, a young, Thai woman asked us in decent English, “what tigers do you want to play with?” “The cubs and mature tigers,” my mom responded. After paying around 3000 Baht, or about ninety US Dollars, we finally entered the Tiger Kingdom. After a short walk, we saw a small building surrounded by tall bamboo in the distance. When we entered the building, my heart started racing. In a small pen were about ten, tiny tiger cubs and about twelve tourists. Seven of the tigers were asleep and then the other three were playful, but seemed a bit lethargic and loopy. When we first entered the cage, none of the cubs that were awake came to play with us, but then the tiger trainers used bamboo rods to slap the cubs so that they came over to “play” with us. Why the hell did they do that, I thought. But the gleam that came with seeing the playful tiger cubs quickly manifested itself into joy in the mind of my sister, mother, and I. The trainers were even prodding at the sleeping cubs to try to wake them up to no avail. Something was off.
After “playing” with the cubs, as they called it, we were directed into a large area surrounded by many cages. For the most part, the cages were about ten by ten feet and each housed a lone tiger. “Wow, those look like some depressed tigers,” my sister said. She was right. The majority of the tigers were lying on concrete face down, barely even moving. Their feces and urine were all over the floor of the cage, but it seemed that no one that worked in the Tiger Kingdom cared. The stench of this area was so repulsive and overwhelming that we left after about five minutes.
The last part of the Tiger Kingdom experience was another large area that was simply one huge cage. In the cage were seven fully mature tigers and their seven trainers, each wielding a large, sturdy bamboo rod. All seven tigers were dead asleep in the middle of the day. Why? My family had no idea. We walked around the enclosure and examined the sleeping tigers. They were behemoths; roughly 800 pounds of sheer power. Their pelts were magnificent, with the bright orange lines contrasting the deep black lines all along their bodies, finally blending to white at its underbelly. One of the trainers yanked on his tiger’ tail and smacked it a few times with the bamboo on its hind side. The tiger was barely able to lift its head and the trainer asked if we wanted to take a photo with it. “No thanks,” my mom responded.
Once we arrived back at our hotel, I immediately took to the internet to find out more about the Tiger Kingdom. Allegedly, they hydrate the tigers that interact with humans with water mixed with some sort of tranquilizer. Although I went to the Tiger Kingdom in hopes of seeing what conservation efforts for tigers is like, I left feeling deceived and disgusted. The owners of the Tiger Kingdom do not care about their tigers, they solely care about profits. Their greed is the reason why these beautiful creatures are isolated, depressed, and possibly drugged. Unfortunately, human greed is the cause of many global problems like pollution, habitat destructruction, and poaching. I wonder if it is possible to reverse the consequences of human greed, but I know it will not be in my lifetime. We simply have done too much damage, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.