An Indochinese tiger at the Pha Luang Ba Tua Buddhist temple, in Thailand's Kanchanaburi province.

KANCHANABURI, Thailand, May 10, 2004 - Walking fully grown tigers on a leash is all part of a day's work for a group of Buddhist monks who have taken on the task of protecting the endangered animals by offering them a home within the walls of their temple.

The sanctuary is run by head monk Phusit Khantidharo, who insists all 10 tigers living at the Pha Luang Ba Tua temple in western Kanchanaburi province have adopted peaceful Buddhist ways. "We are a big family here and we live together, not just with the tigers but many animals," said Phusit, sitting cross-legged on a rock surrounded by five large tigers who take turns to affectionately nuzzle up to their saffron-robed master.

The tigers, with names like Storm, Lightning and Great Sky, live among monkeys, horses, deer, peacocks, geese and wild pigs in a scenic gully where they are free to roam and feed during the day. Visitors to the remote temple, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) west of Bangkok, are invariably stunned by the sight of the monks frolicking with tigers as if they were ordinary domestic cats.

One monk, who weighed less than half his furry companion, was bold enough to crouch down and mock fight with the big tiger, which gently lunged back with its deadly claws retracted. The monks have documented the personalities of all the big cats in a booklet with profiles varying from "likes to be a star and loves showing off" to "pretends to be tame and gentle but will bite."

The tigers, say the monks, are at their most frisky around dinner time when tourists are allowed to enter the gully to watch them eat. "We are Buddhist monks so we can't kill to provide them with food and so we give them dog food paid for by donations to the temple -- they enjoy the dog food," Phusit said.

The first tiger was brought to the temple in 1998 after being injured by a hunter, but died within days. Soon after, two very ill cubs arrived with large knife wounds in their stomachs. Inexperienced hunters had tried to cut them open and inject them with the preserving agent formalin in a bungled attempt to stuff them for a collector. Miraculously, they survived, and the temple quickly earned a reputation as a tiger haven. "When the villagers saw how we tended to the first tigers they brought others. Some were injured by hunters who had a change of heart, others by people who did not want the tiger near their village but also did not want to see it die," he said.

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