Australian Man Arrested After Breaking into 'Abandoned' Zoo to Feed Animals

An Australian man was arrested in Thailand after breaking into what he thought was an abandoned zoo to feed the animals.

Minh Nguyen, from New South Wales, posted a video to YouTube on April 16 claiming he and his friends had stumbled upon “an abandoned zoo still filled with animals”—alleging that the owner had gone bankrupt during the COVID-19 pandemic and the tigers, elephants, monkeys, and alligators had all been “left for dead”.

In the weeks since, Minh has uploaded a series of videos to his personal Instagram, documenting his recurring visits to the closed down zoo as part of his personal mission to make sure the animals don’t go hungry. One shows him feeding an apple to a baby orangutan; in another, he hands a watermelon to an elephant. Last week he posted a video in which a tiger snatches a chicken leg out of his hand—and, later that day, announced into the camera that he’d ordered 1.3 tonnes of food for the zoo, including 200 watermelons and 100 kilos of chicken.

At the time of writing, a GoFundMe page dedicated to “saving and rescuing these animals” had also accrued more than $46,000 from more than 1,300 donors. But not everyone’s a fan of Minh’s philanthropic efforts.

In one of his more recent videos, Minh revealed that “I’ve currently got a bounty, and I had about 30 personnel—military, cops and immigration—looking for me, questioning what I’m trying to achieve here.”

The zoo’s owners, who denounced claims that the animals weren’t being properly cared for, filed a complaint against Minh with Phuket Police and had him and his friends arrested. They were charged with trespassing on private property and breaching Thailand's Computer Crimes Act.

“'I'll be going to court on May 25,” Minh told The Daily Mail. “That's when I will know if they want to make a case of it or not, but I doubt they will… I just want to help the animals.”

Beyond concerns of trespassing, though, some wildlife rights advocates are concerned that Minh’s guerrilla methods could in fact hinder animal rescue efforts. Edwin Wiek, founder of Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand, told the Thai Enquirer that the foundation was already aware about the animals in the zoo before Minh posted his videos—and they were already trying to rescue them, legally.

“We really want to get them [the animals] out and we don’t want to lose that opportunity” Wiek said, “[but] I think the fundraisers have complicated the possible rescue of the animals. Also, it is not transparent enough.”

When Thai Enquirer contacted Minh to try and get some more clarity on what exactly he’s doing to help the animals, he refused to comment.

“I’m playing on my PlayStation right now,” he told them.

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