Pha Luang Ta Bua Temple soon began to gain a reputation as a tiger sanctuary and it wasn't long before villagers presented the abbot with two more cubs. Soon after, the monks discovered that some saw the temple's sanctuary as a business opportunity. One morning Muslim hunters arrived with three cubs. They told Acharn Phoosit they were planning to sell the animals in Bangkok and wanted the temple to look after them for a month while they set up the deal. “I refused,” the abbot says sternly. “I said, ‘If you want us to look after them you must give them to us freely.'”

The tigers are not the only animals to find sanctuary at the Tiger Temple. Wild pigs, deer, and the rare serow (antelope) wander down from the hills every evening to feed with the cows, goats, chickens, rabbits and other domesticated animals, wild pigs come down from the forest to feed.