Teunjai said the temple in western Kanchanaburi province is still admitting tourists, but her personnel are warning visitors of the possible dangers of being present during the moving process.
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The temple operators have been accused of wildlife trafficking, animal abuse and illegally possessing carcasses and endangered species.
Thai officials on Monday descended on the Tiger Temple, sedating the striped cats and caging them up for removal to wildlife refuges.
Soon afterward, authorities found 20 jars containing preserved young tigers at the temple, a national parks official said – a day after 40 dead tiger cubs were found in a freezer at the temple.
Spokespersons for the Tiger Temple said that they had notified Thailand’s Wildlife Conservation Office of all the cubs’ births and deaths and that the bodies were proof that none of them went on the black market. “But for what is beyond me”.
Also on display was the body of a Binturong, a protected species commonly known as a bearcat, which the authorities found with the cub carcasses.
Volunteers, staff and monks at Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua temple complex have long denied trafficking allegations.
The BBC reports that Thailand’s Department of National Parks (DNP) attempted to seize the tigers but multiple times the monks would not allow them to enter the temple.
Animal intestines, a dead boar and other animal parts were also reported to have been found at the temple.
Authorities are now investigating the temple for wildlife trafficking.
The cubs appeared to be up to a week old, he said.
Officials have already removed 61 live tigers out of the 137 in the temple. China uses Tiger parts for medicinal purposes and the frozen Tiger cubs are used for their flesh and their bones, which have medicinal values. He said their DNA would be tested to see if they were related to tigers at the temple.
“Cubs do occasionally die for various reasons … in the past, as per Buddhist customs, these tiger cubs were cremated”, the Facebook post said.
The rescued tigers, some of them autochthonous to Thailand, will be taken to different specialised centres in the country.
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But worldwide animal rights groups including WWF and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals applauded the raid.
