Three monks among those charged
as police remove more dead animals from tourist temple, including bear and
leopard
Reuters in Kanchanaburi
Friday 3 June 201613.41 BSTLast
modified on Friday 3 June 201613.47 BST
Thai police have charged 22
people, including three Buddhist monks, with wildlife trafficking and have
removed more dead animals, including a bear and a leopard, from a Buddhist
temple known as the tiger
temple.
The temple in Kanchanaburi
province, west of the capital, Bangkok, has been a major tourist attraction for
more than two decades, with visitors paying 600 baht (£12) admission to pose
for photographs with the tigers.
Wildlife activists
have accused the temple of illegally breeding the tigers, while some visitors
on online forums complained that the tigers appeared sedated. The temple denies
the accusations.
Adisorn Nuchdamrong, from
Thailand’s department of national parks, said 22 people had been charged with
wildlife possession and trafficking, including 17 members of the temple’s
foundation and three monks who were trying to flee with a truck full of tiger
skins.
The seizure followed the
grim discovery on Wednesday of the bodies of 40 tigers cubs inside a
freezer. It remains unclear why the dead tiger cubs were being stored, although
tiger bones and body parts are used in traditional Chinese medicine.
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