An attendant at a Thai zoo has been transferred after a video showing him repeatedly prodding a tiger to make it roar went viral.
The clip, which has over a million views, shows the Pattaya zoo worker jabbing the chained beast in its face with a stick as tourists take turns to pose with or sit on top of it for pictures.
‘This tiger gets poked all day, hundreds of times a day so it will roar for the picture with tourists,’ wrote Edwin Wiek, the founder of Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand, who filmed the video and posted it to Facebook on Monday.
The clip, which has over a million views, shows the Pattaya zoo worker jabbing the chained beast in its face with a stick as tourists take turns to pose with or sit on top of it for pictures
A spokeswoman for the zoo, The Million Years Stone Park and Pattaya Crocodile Farm, said the attendant had been transferred to another job over the incident.
‘The owner, he loves animals and he will not allow staff to hurt his animals,’ she added.
Tourist cash and the lure of the animal selfie fuel a lucrative but controversial wildlife tourism industry in Thailand, where opportunities to ride elephants, hold monkeys and pet tigers are all available for a price.
Animal rights groups have long criticised the industry as inhumane, with chained up animals kept in small quarters with inadequate diets or veterinary care.
The Pattaya zoo’s website shows pictures of white tigers, bears, camels, deer and other exotic animals in outdoor pens. It also advertises a daily show featuring a man fighting bare-handed with adult crocodiles.
‘We believe that the taking of selfies with wildlife should be stopped completely,’ Wiek told AFP, adding that such behaviour is also risky for humans.
‘Every year hundreds of people are bitten or clawed in similar situations.’
‘This tiger gets poked all day, hundreds of times a day so it will roar for the picture with tourists,’ wrote Edwin Wiek, the founder of Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand, who filmed the video and posted it to Facebook on Monday
In 2016 the kingdom made international headlines after police raided its infamous Tiger Temple, a tourist site accused of links to the illegal wildlife trade.
Pop star Rihanna also inadvertently highlighted another thriving illegal trade in 2013 when she posted a selfie with a slow loris in Phuket.
Earlier this month boxer Floyd Mayweather visited Phuket and posted photos on his Instagram account showing him riding an elephant, another practice criticised by rights advocates.
A July report by World Animal Protection said Thailand was the global epicentre of the elephant tourism industry, with the majority of its 2,198 tourist pachyderms held in inadequate conditions.