Relatively common? A colour variation that appears to only occur in a few square kilometres of the southern Kruger region, that belongs to a species whose historical range encompasses most of Africa, Arabia, Greece and the Balkans, Ukraine, Persia, Afghanistan and the entirety of India. Not common at all I think.
I wasn't aware that we were classing all lions as lions. Someone should tell the zoos that they should designating spacing for lions from India and Africa separately, at least going by what you have said above.
Now if you want to converse appropriately, for a naturally occurring colour mutation, it was believed they were fairly commonly occuring in the timbavati and Kruger region.
Yes that is right. Whether there are white lions running around in the wild or not, the genes will exist in the population. That is how recessive genes work. Then if the conditions occur in the future, they will express themselves again. So we don't need white lions, if they are not out there we have lost nothing. What we need is to maintain the genetic diversity of the lion species so those genes are not lost.
Im confessed, you'll have to clear something up for me. Your saying its not correct to say they were common, then attempting to lecture on how recessive genes work. Except your example is of how recessive genes work in commonly expressed recessive traits. If the genes are not common throughout the population and being expressed I.E white lions being produced at a decent rate. The genes disappear. I have a genetic text book if you want to borrow it to brush up on recessive traits and the gene flow and expression characteristics, your more then welcome to.
Well, actually you were, I quote: "Hopefully we can get some more white lion cubs!" But I am happy you have changed your mind.
Yes I was, and I am still am saying hopefully they produce white lions. There is this thing in the English language called context if your not going to use it. That's up to you. But yes, im not advocating that we inbreed or breed specifically for white lions as a determined project. However that doesn't mean we can't produce white lions from two genetically unrelated individuals, who are probably less inbred then some of our our tawny lions.
That would be the worst thing we could possibly do. The captive population of white lions is a by-product of the canned hunt industry in South Africa. Animals are bred there for their colour without thought for the degree of inbreeding. Introducing white lions to the program in any numbers would significantly further decrease the genetic diversity of the program. Adding one animal to the program might be useful, certainly no more.
There is a lot of assumptions here, not all white lions are going to be from inbred stock, and blood lines from lions originating back to the original animals witch have useful genes that populations of tawny don't have. If widening the gene pool is of concern then actually adding genes in that are part of the southern lion genome complex that are not currently part of conservation gene pool would be advantageous, and actually work towards reducing the decline in genes we see in captive populations that are not heavily or apropriately managed. Lets be real for a minute, the Australian lion population that has been managed, if you go through the population threads can easily trace to inbreeding and reduction of genetics by actively breeding from only facilities or individuals that do not have white relatives. Even though white lions often come with genetics from animals that have wild of semi wild genetics when they are imported. Which would act like unrelated founders. But sure lets just ignore that, and the fact of how dire the population was before we started importing founders again.
The biggest issue in maintaining a genetically viable population in zoos is a lack of spaces. Every space taken up by a white lion is one less space for a program lion.
Unless they are brought into the actual conservation program. In which case they do not reduce or take out from the viable population. The birth of non inbred whites as part of the managed population would also further conservation engagement considering how popular they are with the general public.
But sure let's keep them excluded, wasting spaces, genetics. But lets keep our premier zoos like Taronga breeding lions that have virtually no actual breeding use due to there level of relatedness to the current managed population. That makes sense.
But maintaining genetically viable populations in Australian zoos is extremely difficult. In fact there is only one program currently operating in Australia that has sufficient individuals to be considered genetically viable.
Im surprised we have one. However this isnt a new concept, and a reason why even Gerald Durrell in his day seen the importance of having globally managed programs with constant movement of breeding animals.
That is simply not true, at least not for reputable zoos and not for many years. Sure, there may be the occasional animal born with a colour morph or the occasional rescue, but that is all.
White kookaburras, golden brush tail possums, white wallabies, white Burmese python, The many different colours of tiger snake, brown snakes, inland taipans and the reptiles that get displayed at times, dingoes.
Zoos and our wildlife parks display naturally occurring colour morphs of species outside the nominant colours more often than people think. It's just for some species its appears to be more acceptable than others.
