Sumatran Tiger Ancestries

[Ara]

There has been a fair bit of discussion of Sumatran tigers on the Australian forum lately, due to the fact that the Irwin family's Australia Zoo in Queensland managed to import fresh blood in the form of 3 tigers unrelated to any other Sumatrans in the world's zoos outside Indonesia.

Does anyone have information on the founder base of Sumatrans in either the European or North American regions? I have been told that only about 10 or 11 founders were involved, and that the subspecies has inbreeding problems.

True or not? Does anyone know please?

 

[Panthera Puss]

There are 39 meaningful founders worldwide who have had offspring - this was the case in the 2006 Studbook & I think it still holds good. There were 202 living tigers registered in the studbook as of the end of 2005. Historically there were distinct bloodlines between the North American / Asian / European lines so the genes need to be spread around, to give a short answer!