How's The Air Up There?

As you know, I rarely blog these days. I’m not sure why. I think Instagram has replaced blogging for me. A picture really is worth a thousand words sometimes.

It’s Instagram that’s led me to write this today. I kind of have little themes going when I post photos on there e.g. Mondays are #MonkeyMonday and Saturdays are #SunnySaturday. 

Now given my passions, it’s almost impossible for Tuesdays to not be #TigerTuesday, where I post photos of my visits to assorted tiger sanctuaries I’ve visited in Thailand. For the most part these are well received. Recently however, I’ve had a couple of people really harangue me for my photographs of these amazing creatures.

The first time I visited the Tiger Temple in Kanchanaburi, Thailand I met one of the vets who was volunteering there. He was an English guy who’d chosen to give up six months of his life to work with the monks in tending to the tigers. I’d read up on the place before I went and the internet is filled with horror stories of how atrociously these animals are treated. The biggest claim (unsubstantiated) is that they’re drugged and that’s why we humans can get so close to them. 

So I got chatting to this guy and asked him outright - but away from anyone else’s earshot - if they were given a ‘little something’ to stop them eating the visitors. He laughed and said not at all. He repeated the fact that these tigers are very well fed and that in the midday heat when us humans come in, they really only wanna get some shut eye. 

The fact that recently someone was attacked by a tiger there is yet more proof that they’re not drugged I reckon. I know I’m a soppy old mare but I choose to believe the monks’ story that these are re-incarnated monks and if your karma is good, you’ve nothing to fear.

The second time I visited there, I was lucky enough to play with pretty much full-grown tigers as they cooled off in the water, I also got to hand feed one of them some cooked chicken, after I’d given him a bath. Those guys were definitely not drugged as they somehow managed to round up all the humans in the water and then lined up on land just looking at us and licking their lips!

The Tiger Temple is the oldest of these places in Thailand. A much newer way to interact with them is at Tiger Kingdom. I’ve visited the one in Chiang Mai twice now, and I believe they’ve opened another on Phuket recently. Why wouldn’t they? They’re a license to print money! Both occasions I’ve been there it’s been pretty full of humans.

It’s run very differently to the Tiger Temple, in that they actively breed tigers here. There’s a seemingly endless supply of babies to feed, cuddle and marvel at. Cynical old witch that I am - I’ve wandered away from the crowds on both visits to try and catch some sign of these mythical abuses I’ve read about on the net. I’ve never seen the keepers treat them with anything less than love and respect. Rightly so, these tigers are their bread and butter.

Now I will be the first to hold my hand up and say that there’s a part of me that’s unhappy that these places exist, but I’m pragmatic enough to realise that while they’re far from ideal, they are no worse than the majority of zoos I’ve visited around the world. The success of their breeding programmes eclipses most zoos’ ones.

One of the haters made a huge deal about how once the tigers are fully-grown they’re shipped off to China where they’re killed and parts of them used in traditional Chinese medicine. She could offer no proof at all of this, but swore it was true - in much the same way I can swear that Ryan Gosling loves me with all his heart. 

Now, let’s just say she’s right. It’s abhorrent and disgusting and all of those provocative words, but if we close down all these tiger sanctuaries does anyone really believe that the use of tigers in traditional Chinese medicine will stop? Of course it won’t, what will happen is the very few tigers left in the wild will be hunted to extinction and that’ll be the end of that. Man is the most dangerous and selfish of animals, if he believes taking a pill made of fermented tiger penis will give him a hard on, he’ll keep demanding access to it. 

Look at these medicines, a huge percentage are to cure erectile disfunction. Someone should inform the sick fuckers who demand dead animals bits as a cure that we now have Viagra.

What shocks me the most is zoo workers who attack me. Even the best of zoos is a far from ideal way for animals to live. Singapore Zoo is considered one of the best in the world and when I visited it was was very impressed with the way it’s run. But a tiger in an enclosure vs one living in the wild? Wild is best every time of course. The thing that depressed me more than anything was the way the animals at Singapore Zoo were made to turn tricks for the paying humans. A “show” telling the story of how mankind has destroyed their habitat employed several animals. 

If these Tiger Temples and Kingdoms are exploiting animals, what the hell are zoos with their “shows” doing? Both of them are whoring them out, only the whorehouse changes.

In an ideal world there would be enough space for every living creature to exist in peace with plenty to eat, room to roam and breed, and no fear of us. But when you consider how dreadful we treat each other, it’s pretty obvious that animals haven’t got a bloody chance! 

These people in their ivory towers who berate me for being evil personified because I post a few photos should really take a look at themselves before they start on me. I don’t drive a car, I don’t have kids, I’m really not using up too much of the earth’s resources. My job entails bringing laughter to my fellow man. I’m not the enemy here, I’m just someone who sees the world as it is, not as it should be.

Get your head out of the clouds and check yourself.