By Nirmal Ghosh, Thailand Correspondent
BANGKOK - THAILAND'S famed tiger temple, where monks walk around with tigers - and make money from tourists - is facing accusations that it is a con job, where tigers are traded on the quiet with Laos in violation of the law.
Making the claim is the Britain-based conservation organisation Care for the Wild International (CWI), which this week released a report based on an extensive investigation of the Wat Pa Luangta Bua Yannsampanno in Kanchanaburi.
The 28-page report - much of it a contribution by a volunteer working undercover at the temple - details extensive abuse and exploitation of the tigers.
It also warns of a grave risk to tourists from tigers which, though physically weakened and psychologically cowed, are stressed out and therefore volatile - and have been known to injure staff and volunteers. The report also reproduces a document showing a deal between the abbot of the temple - which styles itself as a tiger rescue centre - and a tiger trader in Laos to exchange a tiger for breeding purposes. Such a deal is illegal under Thai and international law.
The report was given to the Thai authorities last November, said Mr Guna Subramaniam of the CWI's Bangkok office. A reply was promised, but it never came, he said. Neither has any action been taken. That led to the CWI's decision to release the report. 
The temple has, in recent years, become Kanchanaburi's primary tourist attraction, surpassing even the famed bridge over the River Kwai.
Based on the number of visitors, entrance fees and the price for having a picture taken with a tiger's head on your lap - 1,000 baht (S$40) - the CWI estimated that the temple earned about 45 million baht to 50 million baht per year.
The estimates did not take donations into account.
Despite claims to the contrary, it added that 'the tiger temple makes no discernible contribution to tiger conservation'.
It said that the genetic make-up of the tigers is unknown, and the temple did not meet minimum standards for captive breeding for conservation.
Monks and staff let an average of about 10 of the 15 or so tigers out of their cages daily at 1pm. The tigers are walked on short leather and chain leashes to a small abandoned quarry, where they are tethered on short chains, and tourists are allowed to have their photographs taken with them.
The report said the tigers were kicked, poked, beaten, punched, dragged around by their tails, and had their ears and whiskers pulled.
It added that the abbot and staff control the tigers - which were malnourished and kept in small concrete cages - by spraying tiger urine in their faces.
This psychological tactic, which mirrors tigers' spraying of urine to mark their territory, aggressively establishes dominance and keeps the tigers cowed.
Though the temple does not have the necessary licence to breed tigers, it does so anyway. But the CWI said it was impossible to say accurately how many tiger cubs had been born at the temple, and how many had survived. 
'It is clear that (the temple) is not a sanctuary for tiger cubs rescued from poachers, but a commercial tiger breeding centre. Most of the animals at the temple now have either been bred on site or were brought in from the tiger farm in Laos,' it said.
The report recorded cases of tigers disappearing overnight, and in some cases being replaced, in what appeared to be deals to exchange or sell tigers with a tiger farm in Laos.
Even some of the original eight 'rescued' tigers which formed the nucleus of the big cats at the temple eight years ago were not rescued - but bought from a wildlife trader, who confirmed this to the CWI.
Conservationists told The Straits Times that they were not surprised.
The conservation community had long suspected something was amiss at the temple, where the tigers seemed oddly docile. Allegations had been made in the past that the animals were doped, but this had never been proven.
Attempts to investigate such allegations had always been resisted by the temple.
This article was first published in The Straits Times on June 21, 2008.
