Eye of the Tiger

Today we paid a visit to the Soc Son rescue centre an hour out of Hanoi. Soc Son is a government rescue facility and is definitely one of the better rescue centres in Vietnam. However, as they are a government facility they are obligated to take any animal that the government orders to go to them and are unable to say no regardless of whether they have space for the animal or not. There were so many scared wild animals, the majority are victims of Vietnam's horrific wildlife trade. Civets, leopard cats, porcupines, slow loris, gibbons, macquaces, monitors, cobras, moon bears and tigers. Rehabilitation standards are still so low that those that are released back into the wild stand very little chance of surviving, and ridiculously if they can't be released back to the wild there is a loop hole in Vietnamese law that allows wild animals confiscated from the wildlife trade to be sold back into the trade! Its all about making a dollar.

This tiger cub was one of three cubs that were taken from their mother in the wild by poachers and confiscated by officials before making its way to the centre. The cubs will stay at the centre and become part of their tiger breeding program (because the Vietnamese government believes that conservation means captive breeding, regardless of whether there is any habitat left for the animals to be released into or not). We ended up sedating two of the three cubs to properly look at their eyes, skin and ears. They both have numerous health issues, but hopefully our treatment recommendations will be followed and they should be feeling much better soon.

I even copped a little tiger 'love bite' today!