White Bengal tigers at Rancho Texas Park, Lanzarote, 29 April 2007

Are those big cats the rare, elusive desert tigers of the southern United States? Just joking, but they certainly have an interesting exhibit.

Is that the whole exhibit? or is there more that we can't see to the left?

This was pretty much the whole enclosure. It isn't really very big for two adult tigers, but they have tried to make it more aesthetically pleasing by having a more open design without bars.

This park is in Lanzarote, near Puerto del Carmen, and the whole idea of it is supposed to remind us of Texas. On the whole, I was actually quite impressed by it considering it is not a big, well-funded park. The website says that they now have one adult and two young white tigers there.

Dont forget, there are more tigers in Texas then all of India.

I must admit it did puzzle me as to why tigers were there, given the whole Texan theme, but I guess they thought tigers would bring in more visitors (especially white ones).

Is this the place from which several of them escaped sometime last year and something like 3-5 had to be shot dead?

Wow, it reminds me so much of home that I speechless (hint, sarcasm).

As to Texas and its Tigers; I visited the state last autumn and stayed with a friend of mine who is a zookeeper. In some context I brought up the subject of all these tigers in private hands in Texas and remember her saying that many of those tigers 'actually don't look like tigers at all' but I didn't ask her what she meant though. As I didn't get a chance to see any of those infamous Texan tigers with my own eyes (although I saw of course the presumably purebred and healthy specimens in the state's zoo) I take it that she meant many of them are 'cocktail tigers', i.e. inbred, bred from various subspecies over several generations, even bred using different different species like lions. Has anyone seen any of those infamous Texas tigers that look like they could become valid zoo breeders?

Baldur said:

Has anyone seen any of those infamous Texas tigers that look like they could become valid zoo breeders?

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In a word - no. I have been to a few tiger "rescue" centers one reputable the other not. The reputable one had a no breeding stance. Their tigers were all of mixed or unknown origin. The $h!th0le one had tigers of 3 "subspecies" (Bengal, Siberian, and Indochinese). Of course I'm quite sure none of these were pure. The place bred animals like crazy. So there were mixes of lions and tigers (Ligers) and even a few 2nd generation hybrids (Taligers) There is nothing like seeing a "Barbary" Lion mixed together with a Taliger (white tiger-liger hybrid). Granted these Tigers were in Oklahoma so maybe not representative of Texas, but I think it's probably the case here too.

Not surprised they escaped, I would nooot be very comfortable with those low walls...