Tourists in Thailand are urged to be wary of a wild tiger spotted in a national reserve in Kanchanaburi province
A large wild tiger has been spotted roaming around the Srinagarind Dam in Tha Kradan district in Kanchanaburi province, said Kittishit Thummas, head of the district administration. Tourists visiting the popular Srinagarind Dam and the famous Erawan waterfall in Thailand are urged to beware of the wild tiger.
Four CCTV cameras filmed the huge cat strolling along the dam around 2 a.m. The tiger is believed to have wandered into the area from the Salak Phra reserve.
Srinagarind dam security officers spotted the tiger on surveillance cameras and went in search of it. The officers caught a glimpse of the wild animal before the tiger escaped down the stairs of the dam’s power plant.
Officers are urging the public not to go into the woods near the area and to keep an eye out for the cat in the Tha Kradan area. Erawan district head Kitthisit Thummas posted a photo of the tiger on Facebook* with a message urging locals and tourists to beware of the huge predator.
Employees of the Panther Corporation, a global big cat conservation organization, are studying surveillance footage to determine the exact species of the tiger spotted in Thailand. Specialists are studying the animal’s behavior to see if the same cat has ever been recorded. However, no matches were found in the database. So the tiger was tagged as SLT0002M and entered into the system.
After studying camera trap footage installed in the forest by the Panther Corporation, officials believe that the same tiger had previously been caught wandering in the Ban Thung Na area. On another occasion, the animal was captured by cameras in the Salakpra Wildlife Sanctuary.
The tiger’s habitat is part of a huge forested area that officials are preparing to declare a no-hunting zone. The protected area, which covers 350 square kilometers in the Si Sawat and Bo Phloi districts, consists of steep mountains and dense jungles that are home to millions of species of flora and fauna.
Last week, cameras in Thailand captured a rare clouded leopard roaming the new wildlife refuge.
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