In Thailand, issues related to wildlife tourism are reflected in rescuing tigers and bears.

• Following two years of closed borders and few tourist entries, many captive wildlife facilities around the world are in trouble.

• Phuket Zoo in Thailand recently closed permanently, yet relocating its eleven tigers and two bears have proved a challenge.

• A local non-profit, Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand, stepped in to undertake the largest single tiger rescue in the country's history and has so far transferred one female tiger to its recovery center.

The future of Phuket Zoo was undetermined even before the corona pandemic caused the shutting down of borders for foreign visitors. Animal rights activists had frequently raised concerns about the condition of the facility, and visitor numbers were already dwindling. Now, after two years of almost zero admissions, the zoo has permanently closed.

Most of the captive animals have been moved to nearby wildlife parks, but the zoo's 11 tigers and two bears (an Asiatic black bear and a Malayan sun bear) have proved more difficult to relocate. The costs of feeding and caring for large mammals are prohibitively expensive for the country's wildlife centers which are struggling to feed their animals following the loss of tourism-related revenues.

Eager to find a solution, the zoo owners turned to Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand (WFFT), a non-profit wildlife rescue center located in Phetchaburi, an eight-hour drive north of Phuket. Although WFFT has campaigned against Phuket Zoo's practices in the past, the organization has agreed to welcome all animals to its wildlife sanctuary, through what will be the largest single tiger rescue in Thailand's history.

An unsustainable solution

In stark contrast to their natural habitat, the captive tigers and bears at the zoo lived inside small concrete enclosures where onlookers reported seeing them tied with short chains to photographic platforms for hours on end, forced to pose for selfies so loved by tourists.

According to animal welfare experts, this situation is just one example of the risks facing animals in the captive wildlife tourism industry, not just in Thailand, but around the world.

“Commercial wildlife facilities whose revenues depend on tourism are all struggling economically and mostly closing their doors,” said Jan Schmidt-Burbach of World Animal Protection in Mongabay. "In the most of the cases animals usually suffer a lot because they have no where to go."

While relocating Phuket Zoo's tigers and bears to a reputable sanctuary is good news, Schmidt-Burbach says the strategy can't be seen as a solution to these facilities' over-reliance on tourism-related revenues. The problem is extremely prevalent in Thailand, where more than 50 facilities across the country are home to more than 2,000 tigers, and some 2,700 elephants are kept in tourist "camps". The lives of all these animals have been endangered over the past two years.

If we're talking about 2,000 tigers in Thailand alone, for instance, there isn't a sanctuary that can accommodate [that many] animals, according to Schmidt-Burbach.

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The start of a historic rescue

WFFT rescue facility was opened in 2001, which consists of a land of nearly 200 acres.This facility is the home of 700 animals. They include 30 bears, a number of elephants, six kinds of gibbons, macaques, lorises, langurs, wild cats, otters, birds, and reptiles. The bulk of the animals are now in the hands of the illegal wildlife trade, the pet trade, the travel and entertainment industries, and those that can be saved will be returned to the wild.

In the last two years the center has received many requests for help from centers in need of wild animals, but WFFT itself has suffered a severe blow from the pandemic as much of its funding comes from "voluntary tourism". "We try to help as many [centres] as possible," said WFFT director Edwin Wiek, "the thing is, without financial support, we can't help more."

In recent months, the organization has raised funds to sponsor the construction of new wildlife enclosures to house rescued tigers and bears. The new facilities are nearing completion. There are three large open enclosures for the tigers, each with smaller adjoining spaces for surveillance and health checks. The largest tiger enclosure is approximately 2 hectares (5 acres) and all are designed to accommodate as natural an environment as possible. There are ponds and mud pools in which the big cats can dive as well as trees, bamboo and structures to climb to seek shade and to stimulate natural behaviors such as chasing and playing.

On 9 February, the WFFT team began the rescue operation by transferring the weakest tiger, a 12-year-old female named Pinthongta who has limited mobility, to her new home in an air-conditioned wildlife ambulance. The team is now awaiting permits to take in the remaining 10 tigers and two bears.

For some of them, especially the elderly people who have never experienced being shackled and kept in a little cage for a few hours each day, Wiek warned that it would be shocking.

The bears, both adult females, will live in an enclosure about six times larger than the current one at Phuket Zoo.

A better way to do it

While WFFT has long campaigned against animal abuse in Thailand's zoos, Wiek said he doesn't see the closure of Phuket Zoo and the rescue of tigers and bears as a significant breakthrough. He said that if it weren't for the pandemic, the zoo would probably still be in operation and the animals would still be in pain.

“Regrettably, not much will have changed when the epidemic is gone and Thailand resumes welcoming tourists, so we will likely need to relaunch our campaign against businesses like these," he said.

The ongoing need for wildlife interactions is a significant obstacle to change. Ironically, when the WFFT team visited Phuket in February to make preparations for the Pinthongta rescue, they ran into a group of tourists who quickly asked them for advice on where to get a good tiger selfie.

“[Some tourists] don't see a problem in [animal welfare] issues,” Wiek said. “So I fear that once the pandemic is over, some places will remain closed forever, but others will be back up and running again.”

Nonetheless, Wiek is confident that the historic rescue of the tigers and bears in question will provide zoo owners and Thai politicians with a new way of thinking.

"It could be an opportunity for Thailand to show it can do better," said Wiek. This rescue "could have a knock-on effect on other zoos and similar facilities to improve the lives of their animals."

"Who knows," he added, "that this might not turn into something even bigger."