Seventy-two tigers died in the span of less than two weeks this month, across two facilities of Tiger Kingdom Chiang Mai, a park where visitors can touch and interact with the big cats. The local livestock department said samples from the tigers showed canine distemper virus - though authorities have not confirmed how the outbreak happened. Officials told a news conference on Tuesday the virus was no longer spreading and no more tigers were dying. No humans had been infected, they added.

The remains of the tigers have all been buried and a recommendation was made for the gravely ill tigers be euthanised, authorities said. The big cats were among more than 240 tigers living across the two facilities at Tiger Kingdom Chiang Mai, according to local media. Canine distemper virus is a highly contagious disease that attacks the host's respiratory, gastrointestinal and nervous systems. While it is typically found among dogs, it can also infect big cats. Besides canine distemper virus, the provincial livestock office in Chiang Mai said last week that samples from the tigers' carcasses also tested positive for a bacteria associated with respiratory disease.

"By the time we realised they were sick, it was already too late," Somchuan Ratanamungklanon, director of the national livestock department, previously told local media - noting that it was harder to detect sickness in tigers compared to animals like common household cats or dogs. Somchuan told reporters on Tuesday that officials had collected samples from the tigers' bodies, the chicken they eat and their surroundings.

The provincial livestock office had earlier said preliminary tests showed the tigers had been infected with feline parvovirus. Some local officials had also initially suspected the outbreak might have stemmed from contaminated raw chicken meat fed to the tigers, the Bangkok Post reported. (BBC)