Indonesia's ‘Tiger King’ Alshad Ahmad determined to keep animals after backlash

ABC NEWS (Australia)

An Indonesian tiger owner who faced a backlash after revealing seven cubs died under his care says he's determined to keep owning the wild animals. While native Sumatran tigers are protected, imported Bengal tigers can be owned and traded in Indonesia, a top ten country for the wildlife trade.

Transcript

00:00In a suburban house in the hills of the city of Bandung, some unusual backyard pets.

00:12Oh, hello. Welcome to my home.

00:15Thank you for having us.

00:16Yeah, you're welcome.

00:17This is the home of Alshad Ahmad, a 29-year-old YouTuber who is Indonesia's Tiger King.

00:23This is my meerkat.

00:25Alshad's been building his home zoo for five years.

00:28Technically, it's a captive breeding program.

00:31There are four tigers here at the moment, and possibly more to come.

00:37How much can they mate in a day?

00:4030 up to 50 times a day.

00:43For how many days?

00:44Four or five days.

00:46So four or five days in a row?

00:48Yeah.

00:49And they can mate 30 to 50 times per day?

00:51Yeah.

00:52Wow. That's stamina.

00:55But tiger cubs are a bit of a sore point here.

00:58Alshad's gained millions of followers online for videos of cubs roaming around the family's luxurious home.

01:05But when he revealed that six out of seven born here died, the backlash was swift.

01:11What were they saying?

01:13I cannot take care of tigers. I murder the tigers. Yeah, something like that.

01:19He says the mother had problems feeding the cubs,

01:22and only when he intervened to bottle-wean them with imported tiger milk did one cub finally survive.

01:31Animals are very hard to take care of because they are very fragile.

01:38They look strong, but actually they are fragile.

01:42Animal rights activists here say authorities in Indonesia

01:46are too willing to grant permits to keep tigers in the name of conservation.

01:52When up to six cubs are dying one after the other, we have to ask what's wrong.

01:57We need to review this practice of keeping tigers,

02:00and ask if the births are followed by deaths, how is it conservation?

02:05But Alshad Ahmad says the conditions he operates in are strict,

02:09and he has big plans for the future.

02:12Eventually, at the end, we want to build a zoo.

02:16With a range of other animals taking up his family's front and backyards, he's already on the way.

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