In some of the world's most popular tourist destinations
animals are being exploited for profit.
TIGER ROARS
But British wildlife activists are fighting back.
The pool's tiny.
Using cameras and smartphones,
they are going undercover to explore and expose these practices.
My name is Katie,
I'm a writer
and a wildlife camera assistant
and I'm here in Thailand with my boyfriend Luke,
who's a wildlife photographer.
'But we're not here on holiday.
'Posing as tourists,
'we've come to investigate a darker side to this holiday destination.'
Jesus, look at the size of that.
Tiger tourism.
Tiger tourism is big business in Thailand and the main attraction...
TIGER ROARS
CAMERA CLICK ..having a tiger selfie.
'We're here to find what's going on behind the scenes
'and what you're really taking part in...'
Thank you.
'..when you're having a tiger selfie.'
Our first stop is a tiger tourist venue
a few hours' drive from Bangkok.
We've just arrived at Million Stone Park.
There is now only 250 tigers left in the wild in Thailand.
But there are around 1,500 kept in captivity in places like this.
They are everywhere.
'There are venues across Thailand offering tourists
'an up-close experience with tigers.
'This one specialises in the roaring tiger selfie.'
HE SPEAKS IN THAI
TIGER GROWLS
The tiger's being poked and prodded which then...
he'll bear his teeth
and I guess look good for the picture.
HE SPEAKS IN THAI
TIGER GROWLS
It's basically teasing, isn't it?
We've arranged to meet with a vet and expert in captive tiger welfare.
There's no benefit of having those tigers for any conservation purpose
or anything else.
These tigers are purely being bred
because people want to take a picture with them.
Tigers are kept in concrete pens.
They have a lack of hygiene, lack of good food.
He is super skinny.
Veterinary treatment is, in some venues, quite inadequate.
Yeah, he's not happy, is he? Look at him.
And when you think about the purpose of it,
all just for selfie pictures...
HE SPEAKS IN THAI
TIGER ROARS
..it's just something that's totally unacceptable.
Hello.
'Next, we drive just 20 minutes away
'to Thailand's biggest tiger tourist attraction.'
We've just arrived at Sriracha Tiger Zoo.
'It holds 350 tigers.'
More tigers, more tigers.
We've heard horror stories about the conditions
and cubs being bred in huge numbers.
So we're here to get evidence and try to see what's going on
behind the scenes.
They don't allow filming, so I'm rigged with a hidden camera.
I've actually got a secret camera in my bum bag.
And Luke is shooting video whilst pretending to take photos.
I wonder if we can get round there, Luke.
Oh.
And tigers all in these enclosures down here as well.
There is just nothing in there to stimulate them, they're just...
They're concrete squares.
TIGERS ROAR
Ten tigers in this enclosure behind us
and two of them have just been fighting.
There's tiger cubs. Oh, should we go and have a look?
Wow. That is a baby.
It's 200, is it? For a picture. Yeah.
Oh, wow.
They're just getting manhandled, thrown from one lap to the next.
It's endless.
Never-ending.
DR SCHMIDT-BURBACH: 'They depend on having tiger cubs
'at any point of time because that's what brings in the people.
'So they have to breed the tigers constantly,
'they call it speed breeding. They remove the tiger cubs'
forcefully from the mother
so they can bottle-feed those tiger cubs with the tourists,
and the mother, after having lost those babies,
will start to go into a reproductive cycle quite quickly again
so they breed her again. Yeah.
And that just continues over and over.
Oh, look, we can actually go in and feed the tiger cubs.
Amazing how desperately, desperately they're trying to feed.
'By openly filming, we've attracted some attention.'
Oh, OK.
We might have to have a break here, we're getting some funny looks
and I don't like it.
Yeah, we've got a guy radioing.
And some funny looks, so we're going to go and do a tiger selfie,
see if we can throw them off the scent.
OK. Tiger cub selfie time.
Hello.
They look quite tired, are you sure it's OK? Mm.
Oh, wow. Hold the bottle.
Oh. Oh, right, OK.
Gosh, he's very hungry, isn't he? Yes. He's hungry.
He's absolutely starving.
Look at this little guy.
Oh, my God, he's amazing.
Oh, it was very short.
He's full? He doesn't look full.
But he still looks really hungry.
Oh.
Thank you. Thank you.
'Having the selfie done hasn't worked,
'we're still under suspicion.'
And unfortunately, prematurely, we're going to have to leave.
It's just insane, like, the sheer quantity of tigers
in this one venue in Sriracha Tiger Zoo.
Who needs that many tigers?
Tigers are incredibly valuable
and this has led to their breeding becoming huge business.
DR SCHMIDT-BURBACH: Tourists need to realise
that their once-in-a-lifetime experience
of taking a picture with a tiger
means a lifetime of cruelty for the tiger.
And if you can ride a wild animal,
hug it or take a selfie with it,
the chances are cruelty is involved, so just don't do it.
If the future for tigers is to be kept in tiny cages
and pulled out for tourists for photo opportunities,
you've got to ask yourself - is that a future?