White Tigers

What is your opinion on White Tigers.

  • Total voters
    108
White tigers = no conservation value = mutant gene emanating from one representative = no true Bengal subspecies as hybridised with Siberians = waste of space in serious conservation breeding minded zoos.

When will we ever break the myth that some zoos espouse on breeding endangered white tigers?
 
I don't think white tigers themselves are bad per se, but rather the breeding of them. When animals are just bred for colours, bad things happen :( There's horses with nerve issues, pit bulls bred for the "rare" blue colouration are more prone to skin problems, cats who are deaf and as we see with the white tigers too often, deformities.
 
Meaghan Edwards said:
I don't think white tigers themselves are bad per se, but rather the breeding of them. When animals are just bred for colours, bad things happen :( There's horses with nerve issues, pit bulls bred for the "rare" blue colouration are more prone to skin problems, cats who are deaf and as we see with the white tigers too often, deformities.
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They are bad in themselves as they occupy valuable and limited spaces for REAL and (critically) ENDANGERED tigers (subdivided by the various subspecies).

Any spaces in accredited zoos given over to white tigers or white lions or whatever other mutant/recessive genetic clowns is a definite waste of space (and - in my opinion - a misguided attempt to get in the punters ... where there is soOOOOOO many greaaattt ideas to do so using valid tiger subspecies and tell their story or participate in a breeding programme).
 
This sort of thing makes me want to despair. As long as the media all over the world puts out this tripe it's not surprising that the public creates a demand for badly-bred animals:

 
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Well that was just wrong, wasn't it? They even said in the voice-over that tigers were declining in the wild. So why is this zoo going to concentrate on breeding Whites?

:p

Hix
 
re: Maltese Tiger - that photo is merely a color image of a regular tiger where the tiger was converted to black & white in Photoshop and the background as well as his/her eyes and mouth were left color. A popular "artistic" technique, but in no way meant to represent any form of real tiger.
 
Hix said:
They even said in the voice-over that tigers were declining in the wild. So why is this zoo going to concentrate on breeding Whites?
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It didn't explain why they are concentrating on White, in preference to Normal- coloured Tigers, or the message was lost to me... But there is one important difference here, being in India these will at least be pure Indian tigers, whereas all those outside India are of mixed race nowadays and the pure Indian tigers(of either colour) have been lost.
 
Pertinax said:
It didn't explain why they are concentrating on White, in preference to Normal- coloured Tigers, or the message was lost to me... But there is one important difference here, being in India these will at least be pure Indian tigers, whereas all those outside India are of mixed race nowadays and the pure Indian tigers(of either colour) have been lost.
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To lead by example? The sad truth is that normal coloured Bengal tiger are losing their battle in the wild and the Indian zoo programme - save for a few zoos that do breed - is not functioning properly as yet.

What is disconcerting here is that some Indian zoos are more content to breed white tigers indiscriminately under the pretense that they are endangered in the wild than these very same zoos are for provisioning adequate housing and breeding spaces to their normally coloured and pure-bred counterparts.

There is sufficient potential for a full scale and coordinated breeding programme, but as yet nothing ... not even breeding spaces or allocation of space in general to pure-bred Bengal tigers is even adequate!

It makes me cringe sometimes!
 
Just a question does anyone know if any zoos breed only pure bred bengal tigers? Or how many even exist in zoos that don't have their genes messed up because of inbreeding. I have never seen just oranges exhibited. If a zoo has bengals they usually have a white.
 
kbaker116 said:
Just a question does anyone know if any zoos breed only pure bred bengal tigers? I have never seen just oranges exhibited. If a zoo has bengals they usually have a white.
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Bengal=Indian and I don't think any zoos outside India currently have any purebred Indian Tigers.
 
Kifaru Bwana said:
What is disconcerting here is that some Indian zoos are more content to breed white tigers indiscriminately under the pretense that they are endangered in the wild than these very same zoos are for provisioning adequate housing and breeding spaces to their normally coloured and pure-bred counterparts.

There is sufficient potential for a full scale and coordinated breeding programme, but as yet nothing.. not even breeding spaces or allocation of space in general to pure-bred Bengal tigers is even adequate!
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I'm presuming that all(?) Tigers in Indian Zoos are pure Indian Tigers or do they also have any crossbreds? If so then captive breeding of Indian tigers in their homeland is probably a lost cause as it was in some of their zoos that held Indian(cross African) Lions in the past.

I saw White Tigers in Delhi Zoo many years ago- they were kept in poor conditions and already looked to be suffering from inbreeding depression.
The Indian tigers left in the wild reserves are certainly better off than those in Indian Zoos!
 
Pertinax said:
Bengal=Indian and I don't think any zoos outside India currently have any purebred Indian Tigers.
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Wow that stinks, you think zoos would invest in these cats, but like Asian Lions (in the U.S.) I guess they just don't choose to.
 
I think you will find they disappeared through natural loss(deaths), replacement with other (Siberian or Sumatran) races and particularly in the case of the Whites, crossbreeding with other subspecies. Then suddenly there were no more purebred Indian tigers in our zoos and India were not exporting any new ones...
 
Pertinax said:
being in India these will at least be pure Indian tigers, whereas all those outside India are of mixed race nowadays and the pure Indian tigers(of either colour) have been lost.
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Are you sure? I thought the White's in India would probably be hybridised with other ssp. too.

If they are purebred Indian White's, then they should be breeding them with normal coloured Indians (as would happen in the wild). If they get whites in subsequent generations then that's a bonus.

Of course, that's what Western Zoos (that know what they're doing) would probably do. I guess the Indian Zoos will do what they want.

:p

Hix
 
If you scan through past postings you will see that the Indian whites are all pure-bred. In fact they hold a studbook for Bengal whites.

Why for heaven's sake we need to breed them intentionally for the white gene though ... is beyond me. It really does not serve a conservation purpose whatsoever.

In fact the pure-bred Bengal tiger programme should take off big time if we are to stave off the imminent EW of Bengal tigers in the wild.
 
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