Officials were surprised when they finally got the results from DNA testing on the dead tiger cubs seized from Kanchanaburi’s Tiger Temple earlier this year.
Amazingly, the ten dead tiger cubs they tested had no genetic links with the 147 live tigers removed from the temple.
Staff from the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plants Conservation had assumed the dead cubs were offspring of the removed adult tigers but the new thinking is that they must have all been smuggled into Thailand, reported Thai PBS.
When the tigers were removed in June, there were still many other animals living on the tiger temple grounds. Since that time, the department believes that the Tiger Temple has illegally purchased 150 more animals from a zoo in in Nakhon Nayok.
The department would like to remove all of the animals still at the tiger but they do not yet have a permit for that.
