I recall recently I was reading a book written about Sigfried and Roy, which had interviews inside... going into reading it I was of the position that S&R were the two men of prime responsibility for the public idea that the white tiger is endangered in a separate manner from the tiger species.
And I think the book strengthened my position... the story went that one of the men had dreams featuring a white tiger.. he later finds out that there really are white tigers.. adopts a few cubs from Cincinnati... the rest is history. He comes to the conclusion that the white tiger evolved separate from the orange tiger, its white coat adapted to the snowy backdrop of the Nepalese himalayas.
At first I almost saw the logic... with how the snow leopard, which lives in the himalayas, does have a grey-white coat. But then the logic slipped away... where the snow leopard evolved on the rocky outcrops, the tiger evolved for the lowland forests ... and so it's unlikely a white coat would be beneficial anywhere should the tiger want to avoid confrontation or even stalk its own prey. And there are still tigers in Nepal today, but usually in the warmer parts of the country.
[And any white animal that doesn't live at the poles usually moults... white tigers don't!]
And throughout the book the white tiger is confusingly referred to as a separate species... which becomes particularly odd when the book talks about breeding heterozygous orange cubs with the white gene. But then from what I have seen, neither Roy nor Sigfried were the most logical of men... and somehow by luck their manner of being served them....until it didn't. But at least now I have closure as to where at least some of the ideas come from.
