Twenty-three tigers died and 30 more are sick from bird flu at a private zoo in Thailand after eating the carcasses of infected chickens, but health officials said yesterday that there was little threat to humans. The tigers have been dying at the Sriracha Tiger Zoo in central Chonburi province since September 14, said Charal Trinvuthipong, director of the Bird Flu Prevention and Elimination Centre. The animal park was forced to close to the public while authorities investigated. "We've discovered that all 23 dead tigers had bird flu," Charal said. "We've found that another 30 tigers are sick. We believe that the tigers contracted bird flu because they ate chicken carcasses, and we believe the carcasses had bird flu." But Fadela Chaib, a spokeswoman for the World Health Organisation, said in Geneva that there was little risk of transmission to humans because "tigers aren't a receptacle for the human virus". Thai veterinarians were checking for the disease at chicken farms in the province, where the zoo got the birds that were fed to the tigers, Charal said. The more than 400 tigers at the zoo are regularly fed raw chicken, a zoo official said on condition of anonymity. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Indochinese tigers at the Pha Luang Ba Tua Buddhist temple in Thailand's Kanchanaburi province, April 2004. (AFP)