Why did so many Tigers die recently in Vietnam?

Did you know there are only around 3,700 to 5,600 wild tigers left in the world?¹ This is actually an improvement over a much lower wild tiger population a decade or two ago. Wild tigers are endangered globally and are presumed extinct in Vietnam.

Most of the population of the world’s tigers are captive, but even these numbers are small with approximately 8,000 in Asia, 5,000 in the US and 1,600 in Europe. ²

If you have been following this blog for a while, you know about my interest in the undiscovered wildlife of Vietnam. Tigers are exceptionally rare. That is why I was shocked to read a series of articles about the deaths of 47 captive tigers in Vietnam. ³

Before I get into the deaths of these tigers, I should address the cultural significance of the tiger to Vietnamese culture and why they went extinct in the wild of Vietnam.

The Tiger in Vietnamese culture

The Indochina tiger has deep cultural ties to Vietnam and can be a menacing opponent to anyone who dared enter the tiger’s forest home.

Vietnamese has several names for tiger. The word Hổ is used in the north while Cọp is used in the south. The nickname “Ông Ba Mươi” meaning “Grandfather Thirty” referring to a tigers preference to attack villages on the 30th night of the lunar calendar when it was the darkest. The nickname “Chúa Sơn Lâm” meaning “Lord of the Forest” comes out of folklore that claims if you say the tiger’s name (Hổ or Cọp) a tiger will come for you, so it is better to use a nickname.

The tiger is one of the four holy animals associated with autumn and the west. It is also one of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac. ⁴

In many temples around Vietnam there are shrines dedicated to the tiger god and special days to give offerings to this god. Typically, the offering is several pieces of rice paper printed with various Chinese words and pictures. These offerings are burnt and an offering of raw meat and a raw egg are presented before a tiger statue or mural with some salt, uncooked rice and rice wine to be sprinkled upon the head of the tiger. A small prayer is offered with incense and bowing to the god as the offering is presented.

Extinction of the Vietnamese Tiger

A reason why there are so few tigers left in the wild is because they were nearly hunted to extinction. In a little over a century, the population of tigers has dropped from a previous global population of 100,000.

Prior to the 1960’s there were still occasional reports of tigers in Southeast Asia, but tigers are rarely seen following the Second Indochina War with the US.

When US soldiers came to Vietnam, they entered the tiger’s habitat. Tigers are typically solitary, but when the war came to the forest, the tigers were forced into direct conflict with soldiers. Sometimes soldiers would talk about the silent stalker of the forest who would creep around with only a slight hint of movement in the distance. It wasn’t usually the noise that gave tigers away, but complete silence of all wildlife that would let the soldiers know something was near. Occasionally hungry tigers, whose prey had been decimated during the war, would get a taste for human blood and an expedition would need to be sent on a hunt. This is an account of one of those forest hunts.

On December 22, 1968, a man-eating tiger ambushed an American patrol team from the 3rd Marine Recon Battalion near Quang Tri, Vietnam, as they waited for extraction. Stranded by poor weather, the six-man team had set a two-man watch while the others rested. In the dead of night, the silence shattered with screams as the tiger pounced, clamping its jaws around a Marine. PFC Roy Regan, sleeping nearby, leapt up to confront the tiger, lunging to free his teammate, but the tiger dragged its prey into a nearby bomb crater. The Marines quickly pursued, firing at the beast until it released its grip. Dazed, the injured Marine staggered free, asking what had happened, as PFC Maurice Howell recalled. After administering first aid, a CH-46 helicopter evacuated the injured man and the tiger's carcass, which measured nine feet from head to tail. This brutal attack marked the second tiger incident within weeks near the DMZ, as authorities had recently deployed Marines and local hunters to track a tiger suspected of previous attacks in the area. ⁵

Hunting severely weakened the tiger population and dropping bombs and defoliants during the war destroyed the tiger’s forest habitat and finished them off.

The last proof of a wild tiger in Vietnam occured when a wildlife survey camera caught a quick picture 25 years ago. Some assumed that this creature wandered into the Central Highlands of Vietnam from it’s hunting grounds in a Cambodian wildlife sanctuary. It has never been seen since.

Now any tigers that remain in the wild face being hunted for their medicinal properties.

Since wild tigers are no longer in Vietnam, traditional medicine practitioners have turned to another method to produce their medicine. Tiger farms exist were tigers are placed in small illegal pig-pins to be raised for traditional medicine. These tigers are raised from cubs to maturity in these tiny pins until they are harvested. This practice is highly illegal and the government does its best to stop it, but with such a high profit incentive, it is hard to stop. Educational campaigns seem to be helping, but the practice lingers.

Aljazeera addressed this a few years ago when they reported:⁶

“Our investigations reveal how captive tigers in private ownership, zoos, circuses and self-proclaimed ‘sanctuaries’ in Europe, are traded, bred and exploited. They’re used as playthings, for selfies and as circus performers.”

“And when the animal becomes too big, they are worth more dead than alive. The trade in tigers and tiger parts for the production of ‘traditional medicine’ in countries like Vietnam and China is very lucrative.”

Since the 1970’s, the global wild tiger population seems to have stabilized and is now inching upward.

Tiger deaths in captivity

For these reasons, I pay attention when ABC News in Australia reported the H5N1 virus killed 47 captive tigers in Vietnam safari parks. That is a huge portion of the global tiger population to be killed at one time! ⁷ I found it shocking that there were that many tigers in one safari park. I seem to recall quite a few tigers at the safari park in Phú Quốc, but I estimated closer to a dozen or possibly even a couple dozen in the entire park. How did a safari park get so many tigers?

It appears an infected chicken population is to blame for these deaths. The virus does not appear to be airborne and the infections were spread from eating raw meat. Out of the 30 human caretakers, none have yet reported symptoms of a respiratory infection.

This led to the question, What is going to happen to the infected tigers carcasses? I have seen estimates that calculate the value of a dead tiger to be in the neighborhood of $25,000 for an adult when broken down for medicinal use. Thankfully Newsweek reported that the entire group was cremated on site to not perpetuate the medicinal medicine market any further. ⁸

ABC news ended their article by hinting that the disease will likely return next spring and could cause serious infections and deaths if spread to humans. I doubt this is likely. It doesn’t appear this is an epidemic and no further tiger deaths have been reported, so I am going to assume this case is now closed.

1. https://www.npr.org/2022/07/23/1113186725/tigers-population-numbers-endangered-species

2. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2023/04/12/how-many-tigers-left-world/11600984002/

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/4/22/more-tigers-in-captivity-than-in-the-wild-new-report-highlights

3. A couple sentences caught my eye at the bottom of this newsletter with a link to an ABC Australia article. Most people might skip it, but I found the number to be shocking considering how many tigers are left in the world.

Can $10 Billion 'Revitalize' Culture?

4. https://mythlok.com/vietnamese-mythical-creatures/

5. https://www.wildlifexteam.com/about/blog/tiger-attacks-during-vietnam-war-hidden-predators-in-the-bushes.html

6. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/4/22/more-tigers-in-captivity-than-in-the-wild-new-report-highlights

7. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-04/bird-flu-h5n1-kills-47-tigers-vietnam-zoos/104432308

8. https://www.newsweek.com/vietnam-zoo-bien-hoa-city-tiger-bird-flu-outbreak-deaths-1963709

https://local12.com/news/nation-world/vuon-xoai-zoo-47-tigers-3-lions-panther-confirmed-die-dies-dead-mass-death-incident-cincinnati-manager-health-conditions-danger-dangerous-situations-captivity-farm-animals-poultry-domesticated-lethal-menace-tested-negative-detected-cases-infected-infect