White tigers, Species Survival Plans and Conservation

Did you all know that their are three reasons why the white tigers are not managed in the AZA\'s Tiger Species Survival Plan [TSSP] here in North America?

It is NOT because these white tigers are inbred like the AR Group\'s tend to promote.

1. The main reason is that the Bengal tiger is managed in India and may be managed by Europe but not in American Zoos.

2. The other reasons are the Geo-political tracing [ancestor\'s] of captive tigers to the wild cannot be confirmed. There is no way to do so without formal genetic testing. And formalized genetic testing is not being utilized to its fullest potential within the AZA\'s breeding program.

3. And the last reason is that they do not see color as a applied managing technique.

None of this had or has anything to do with inbreeding, in fact the AZA\'s own program managers [TSSP] at the time when the program was implemented [1982 to 1983] assumed that all founder stock were unrelated in all of its tiger breeding programs. In other words AZA made the generalized assumption that its breeding stock (founders) were all unrelated even if they were not.

Another interesting note with the AZA\'s TSSP is that they could not trace most of their tiger\'s to the wild either, they again assumed that they had what they call \"fair representation\" when starting.

Further note that contrary to the current political and social implications it does not mean that color may not be important, scientific evidence does point otherwise. Contrary to popular subcultural hearsay mankind did not invent white tigers, they were a natural occurrence in the wild [The Deer & The Tiger Geo Schaller]. Fossil evidence suggests that tigers evolved in Siberia, migrating to the tropical lands of southern Asia and the Indian subcontinent, passing north of the Tibetan plateau to the Caspian region and eastern Turkey. Over the past 100 years only about a dozen white tigers have been reported in India in the wild, and interestingly only in the Bengal subspecies, this suggests that the mutation occurs in only one out of every 10,000 wild births. With fewer than 2,500 wild tigers remaining in India it is no wonder that no recent spotting\'s of white tigers exist over the past 15 to 20 years.

On the other hand those in a hurry to mass produce white tigers should hold off until a formal management program can be introduced. The white tiger population in today traces its ancestry to a single white male named mohan, collected in 1951. Successive inbreeding in captive populations for the variation has resulted in the approximately 300 or so white tigers in existence today. The inherent genetic problems associated with the required father/daughter/granddaughter pairings, resulting in the white tiger lineage, often manifests itself in other abnormalities including crossed eyes, bone deformations and reduced immune system functions. These factors have created a controversy among zoos, animal rights groups and those facilities who choose to breed and display the white tigers. At the root of the problem is the fact that white tigers are a popular exhibit, helping increase attendance and revenues at zoos and animal parks, while on the other hand their breeding allegedly serves no conservation purpose. Another note is that the same deformities would, could and will be found in any tiger that is line bred to closely. Out crossing management would protect against theses isolated factors associated with inbreeding but only if done properly!

Brian Werner
Tiger Link