12/5/2023 0 Comments Tabby cat white tiger looking![]() ![]() But the handful of genetic samples used in the study (14 to 20) came primarily from a few sanctuaries (including Big Cat Rescue), some roadside zoos, a circus, and a private breeder. The study seems to conclude that white tigers are not significantly more inbred than golden tigers. The roadside zoos that make an enormous amount of money charging the public to view, pet, or swim with white tiger cubs like to point to a thesis submitted by an undergraduate college student at Texas A&M University published in 2013. Given that the public is drawn to white tigers based on misconceptions, this argument is ridiculous. One roadside zoo advocate of white tiger breeding, himself a very clever marketer, argues online that AZA only did this to “protect AZA market share” from non-AZA zoos. In 2011 the Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA), the accrediting body for the major zoos, issued a White Paper documenting the reasons that breeding to foster a recessive gene like this was contrary to the principles of conservation and should not be done by their zoos. No one knows if others are born with such severe defects because there is no tracking of cubs born at roadside zoos to know if they are destroyed at birth if they are born with such defects. The most deformed white tiger we know of was Kenny, who came to Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas from a private breeder at 20 months old in 2000. One of the roadside zoo owners who promotes breeding of white tigers published a photo of himself riding around in his luxury car with cross eyed cub. Our Sapphire is cross eyed, as are some of the other tigers pictured here. One of the most common defects particularly seen in white tigers is being cross-eyed. That, and their popularity, incentivized roadside zoos and private breeders to try to create white tigers. Their rarity created value, reportedly tens of thousands of dollars each back then. The breeding began in volume at one large zoo, then with Seigfried & Roy beginning in the early 1980s. So the origin of the white tigers here was already a function of inbreeding Mohan to his own daughter. That produced white cubs, one of whom was brought to the United States and became the foundation of the breeding here. Mohan was then bred to one of his own orange daughters. Mohan was bred to an orange tiger and all of the offspring were orange. The captive population began with the capture of one white cub, Mohan, whose mother and siblings were killed in order to capture him, in 1951. ![]() The fact that none have been seen since suggests that they either have trouble surviving, perhaps because of the lack of camouflage, or that they are born very, very infrequently, or both. The last one reported seen in the wild was killed in 1958. There is no evidence we have seen that these were very common. Over the centuries in India there were reports of white tigers. All of the tigers in roadside zoos are generic tigers, including all white tigers, largely as a result of the effort to breed white tigers. tigers who are not of pure subspecies and therefore have no conservation value. The result of that cross breeding is “generic” tigers, i.e. Cross breeding Bengal tigers with Siberian tigers is believed to increase the odds of producing white cubs. But, there is a connection to the Siberian tiger. Originally all white tigers were Bengal tigers in India. People often confuse Siberian, or Amur, tigers with white tigers because we think of snow when we think of Siberia. If one or both of the mating tigers are white, the odds improve. If two golden tigers that have that gene mate, sometimes a white cub will be born. Wi thout getting into detailed genetics, white tigers are the result of a recessive gene. ![]() But, when you think about it, are white tigers more beautiful than the wonderfully colored orange tigers? Often we hear people talk about how beautiful white tigers are. It is not easy, and takes a long time, to dispel widely held public misperceptions.įurther, there is always a tendency to place value on anything that is rare. There are alligators in the New York sewer system, black cats are bad luck, tiger bone wine increases virility, and white tigers are a “species” that should be bred in captivity to “preserve” them.
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