Bengal tigers in Europe ?

vogelcommando

vogelcommando

Well-Known Member
10+ year member
Was just wondering if there are realy no pure Bengal tigers anymore in European zoos. ZooTierListe list 100 former keepers in Europe and at the beginning - mid 20th centuary it must have been kept and bred in large numbers both in zoos and circusses.
In those days Bali, Javan, Sumatran, Indochinese, Malayan, South China and Caspian tigers were quite rarely kept and bred ( or not kept at all ) and only the Siberian tiger was kept and bred also in good numbers.
Therefor I hardly can't believe that all Bengal tigers have been mixed-up with other tiger subspecies and that there are none pure Bengal tigers at all anymore in Europe and why should this have happened with the Bengal tiger and not for example with the Siberian tiger ?
Is there ever done any DNA-testing on the European tiger population ?
Hope some Big Cat-experts can give me some answers on this.
 
Zootierliste is actually rather more liberal with its definition of pure Bengal Tiger than the bare facts tell, listing several relatively-recent collections and individuals which (although having high levels of Bengal ancestry in some cases) were nonetheless hybrids. As such not all of the former holders listed on ZTL are genuine Bengal.

vogelcommando said:
Therefor I hardly can't believe that all Bengal tigers have been mixed-up with other tiger subspecies and that there are none pure Bengal tigers at all anymore in Europe and why should this have happened with the Bengal tiger and not for example with the Siberian tiger ?
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The single biggest factor to consider is that the Bengal Tiger was interbred with Siberian in a methodical and deliberate fashion in order to produce larger and more impressive white tigers - individuals with the white gene were bred with Siberians, or individuals with Siberian blood, and this added an extra little bit of genetic impurity to the captive Bengal population beyond the "usual" level of hybridisation borne of collections merely not taking as much caution to keep subspecies pure in the past and often just sticking a pair together regardless of their origin.

The problem actually got so bad that certain populations of wild Bengal are known to be impure to some extent, as a result of at least one European collection sending hybrid stock back to the wild for release.

Siberian and Sumatran tigers also went through a patch where there was a high amount of hybridisation and contamination in the captive populations.... the only difference is that there were some pure ones left once those days waned for collections to start breeding from :p

vogelcommando said:
Is there ever done any DNA-testing on the European tiger population ?
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There has been, yes. The last 100% pure individual was a white male at Bristol Zoo, who died in 1984.
 
TeaLovingDave said:
The problem actually got so bad that certain populations of wild Bengal are known to be impure to some extent, as a result of at least one European collection sending hybrid stock back to the wild for release.
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Would that be Twycross by any chance? I heard they released a tiger with Amur/Siberian blood back in the 70's?
 
Brum said:
Would that be Twycross by any chance? I heard they released a tiger with Amur/Siberian blood back in the 70's?
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That's the one ;) a female named Tara I believe. I was being deliberately discreet in case they weren't the only one.
 
Out of curiosity would anyone know if Dublin zoo ever held a Bengal tiger? I have an acquaintance who claims a specimen from the sundarbans and was held until at the least 2012 in the exhibit next to the Sumatrans, which has also held Siberians, wolves and supposedly a tapir. However all searches I’ve done universally cite the Bristol zoo as the final holder of a pure Bengal in Europe, and with their tiger dying in 1986. I’m leaning towards it being false and the Dublin hasn’t held Bengals, but I am open to all inputs.
 
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