{"id":32839,"date":"2025-07-29T22:22:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T22:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/32839\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T22:22:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T22:22:08","slug":"absolute-madness-thailands-pet-lion-problem-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/32839\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Absolute madness&#8217;: Thailand&#8217;s pet lion problem"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                                    Chiang Mai, Thailand \u2013 <\/p>\n<p>Behind a car repair business on a nondescript Thai street are the cherished pets of a rising TikTok animal influencer: two lions and a 200-kilogram lion-tiger hybrid called &#8220;Big George.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Lion ownership is legal in Thailand, and Tharnuwarht Plengkemratch is an enthusiastic advocate, posting updates on his feline companions to nearly 3 million followers.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They&#8217;re playful and affectionate, just like dogs or cats,&#8221; he said from inside their cage complex at his home in the northern city of Chiang Mai.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chiang Mai, Thailand \u2013 Behind a car repair business on a nondescript Thai street are the cherished pets&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[20860,2837,49,48,6381,9299,66,2059,3592,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-32839","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-animal-welfare","9":"tag-animals","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-lions","13":"tag-pets","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-southeast-asia","16":"tag-thailand","17":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}