More than 80 tigers that were rescued from a temple in Thailand have died from a viral disease
The tigers were rescued from the Wat Pa Luang Ta Bua, known as Tiger Temple, in Kanchanaburi province, Thailand, according to local media reports.
The Buddhist temple - Wat Pa Luang Ta Bua, known as Tiger Temple, in Kanchanaburi province, west of Bangkok - was a tourist attraction where visitors took selfies with tigers and bottle-fed cubs. But in 2016, authorities removed its 147 tigers in response to global pressure over wildlife trafficking. The animals were taken to two state-run sanctuaries, where it soon became apparent they were susceptible to canine distemper virus, according to a senior official from the country's department of national parks, wildlife and plant conservation.
"When we took the tigers in, we noted that they had no immune system due to inbreeding," the department's deputy director-general, Prakit Vongsrivattanakul, told the state-owned broadcaster MCOT.He did not give a figure for the number of tigers that had died, though public service broadcaster Thai PBS reported that the figure was 86 - more than half.
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