Bristol Zoo (Closed) Last Indian Tigers?

[Pertinax]

Many thanks for supplying this. Yes, Bristol's original White tigers Champak and Chemili were from the same litter born at Rewa.

As I suspected, this shows that the last 'known' proven Indian tiger was Akbar 2nd, produced from this line, who died in 1986.

There were other breedings of normal-to-white tigers at Bristol after this date, including several normal- coloured females produced that were sent to Longleat. Presumably as one (the orange) parent didn't have a traceable ancestry from the wild, then these aren't studbook listed and therefore cannot be considered pure?

Following on from this, can you trace the wherabouts of any current/the last purebred Indian tigers in any zoo(s) outside India?

 

[Panthera Puss]

Presumably the female in the USA (665) is the only studbook Bengal outside India?

WHF claim their Padmini to be pure bred on their website (she was born to IOW Zoo's pair Shere Kahn & Tamyra who came from Blackpool & Twycross respectively) but IOW have not claimed their Bengals to be pure-bred in the time I've known the zoo. From what I gather it's really been a case of the store of knowledge increasing gradually over time to a point where you come to call the tigers 'generic' rather than pure Bengals. I think there's a study in 'Riding The Tiger' about DNA testing on Zoo tigers which turned up some 'accidental' pure-bred cats, i.e. some of those thought to be generic proved genetically to be of Studbook quality, so it can work both ways, as implied by Amur above (but of course you likely would not be able to trace a line back to a founder with these animals).

Hope that helps, I don't claim to be qualified to answer

 

[Pertinax]

but IOW have not claimed their Bengals to be pure-bred in the time I've known the zoo. From what I gather it's really been a case of the store of knowledge increasing gradually over time to a point where you come to call the tigers 'generic' rather than pure Bengals.

Most, if not all of the IOW tigers are from generic backgrounds.

It is interesting that there appear to be far less pure Indian lines traceable in the Studbook, than for either Siberian or Sumatran Tigers. In the past it was the Indian/Bengal tiger which was the commonest subspecies in most zoos, yet it appears very few of them came from known, racially pure, backgrounds.

 

[Amur]

Hi Pertinax

Your welcome, and thanks to you too.
Regarding current/last outside India.....i will check the stud book, but first i need to finish the Marwell tiger list for Kwame.
I might as well keep the stud book at home considering nobody at work hardly ever uses it.

It is interesting that there appear to be far less pure Indian lines traceable in the Studbook, than for either Siberian or Sumatran Tigers.

Yes, the stud book Bengals are only from 29 Founders, compaired to 111 Amur Founders.
Sumatran Founders is 39
Sumatran living is 207

best wishes

 

[Panthera Puss]

Re. Bengals outside India - the 2006 (& 2008?) studbooks show 1.1 Bengals in Indonesia and 2.3 in Malaysia (in unnamed locations) as well as the individual female in the USA (location given as 'Texas'), although the owners of these animals had not reported to the studbook keeper in the previous year.