I think it numbers at 8 to 11 now.
Ridiculous, all that space could be used to breed Sumatrans or some other endangered subspecies, not these! (Although it's beutiful and a very good picture)
If this is a pure-bred Bengal as the title suggests, then it's genes are valuable to the Bengal line - unless you think zoos should dump Bengals for Sumatrans. The white gene is just one morph at that specific locus, it is naturally occurring, and to exclude a pedigree white tiger from reproducing simply because of it's colour would be criminal.
However, if this animal is an intergrade then I agree that breeding should not be on the agenda (does anyone else think the ears look a little small and close together?)
Having said that, there are a lot of white tigers in zoos and your options would be to either euthanase them all or have a zoo that will hold them all and not breed them so other zoos can have the space to concentrate on breeding the rarer subspecies.
fanaloka said:
If you want to know more please refer to Tigers of the world. eds. Ronald Lewis Tilson and Ulysses S. Seal, 1987 - there is a separate chapter devoted to white tigers including very good article by dr.A.K.Roychoudhury on the genetics of white tigers.
In regards to the Bengal pure bred question I am sorry if the title is misleading I am just naming as it is called by WMSP. I know some people think it is silly to waste time on non pure breeds but its a buyers market & the public love different. Sometimes I think zoo's have to tread a fine line between conservation & paying the bills
In regards to the Bengal pure bred question I am sorry if the title is misleading I am just naming as it is called by WMSP. I know some people think it is silly to waste time on non pure breeds but its a buyers market & the public love different. Sometimes I think zoo's have to tread a fine line between conservation & paying the bills
I agree with you in 100% !!!!! Zoos and other public zoological collections at first place should take into consideration the needs and expectations of the regular (ordinary?) visitors (to make all clear by "regular or ordinary visitor" I mean anyone who is not fanatic zoo-enthusiast !!). And people like everything what is exceptional, strange, unusuall etc. So they like to see white tigers as well. All what I wanted to say is that the genetic of all white tigers outside India is rather complicated and in most cases they are not pure bred of any subspecies (neither Bengal nor Amur).
