Disturbing Video of Tourist Posing With Tiger in Thailand Exposes Dark Photo Trend

A video on X showing a behind-the-scenes video of a photo shoot at Tiger World Thailand has gone viral and highlighted a serious problem in the country.

The video shows an American tourist sitting on a brick with his legs crossed as an enormous tiger approaches from behind and puts its paws on the man’s shoulders with the aid of zookeepers. The tourist looks terrified throughout as he tries his best to pose for a photo. The video, posted recently, has racked up close to five million views at the time of writing.

The zookeepers also seem nervous throughout and will only leave the tiger alone for a few seconds at a time, just enough for an unseen photographer to capture a few frames. As soon as the big cat moves its head, the staff are straight back with a bottle of milk to distract it.

The tiger’s minders have good reason to be apprehensive: last year a tourist was mauled by a tiger while posing at Tiger Kingdom in Phuket, Thailand.

The photo shoot took place at Tiger World Thailand, about 60 miles from Bangkok. According to the zoo’s website, a photo shoot like the one the American tourist got cost over $200. It notes that only “strong people” can have the tiger on their shoulders.

Tiger World Thailand’s Instagram page is filled with photos of tourists doing the exact pose the American tourist was doing. Other poses are available, but the shoulder pose seems like the most popular.

‘Don’t Visit These Places’

International NGO, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), advises tourists in Thailand to stay away from any venue offering the chance to interact or take photos with tigers.

“Tiger entertainment venues may claim that profits support tiger conservation but this is, in truth, rarely the case,” writes the EIA, pointing to one venue called Tiger Temple in Thailand, which was raided by authorities and 40 dead tiger cubs were found in a freezer. 147 tigers were rescued, but around half died shortly after.

“Speed breeding is what keeps the supply going,” writes Anish Moonka on X. “Mothers get their cubs taken at two to three weeks old. The females come back into heat much sooner and pop out another litter long before nature would let them. World Animal Protection investigators walked through Thai tiger parks and found half the cats they saw in cages smaller than a one-car garage. A wild tiger covers 10 to 20 miles in a single night.”

The EIA says that captive tigers held in entertainment are not treated well. The early separation from their mothers is so they can be hand-raised and bottle-fed by tourists.

“Cubs work the photo line for a few months,” adds Moonka. “They get passed from tourist to tourist hundreds of times a day. Most are declawed, which is exactly what it sounds like: amputating part of each toe so they cannot scratch a paying customer. Once a cub grows too big or starts pushing back, it is finished with the photo business and too expensive to feed.”

So while it may seem like a cool idea to get a photo with a tiger for social media, tourists should be aware that they are fuelling something far more sinister.