White tiger

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For other uses, see White tiger (disambiguation).
White tiger
White Tiger cub
White Tiger cub
Conservation status
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Family: Felidae
Genus: Panthera
Species: P. tigris
Subspecies: P. t. tigris

White tigers are individual specimens of the ordinary orange tiger (Panthera tigris), with a genetic condition that causes paler colouration of the normally orange fur (they still have black stripes). The condition is well-documented in the Bengal tiger subspecies (Panthera tigris tigris or P. t. bengalensis), may also have occurred in captive Siberian tigers (Panthera tigris altaica), and may have been reported historically in several other subspecies. White pelage is most closely associated with the Bengal, or Indian subspecies. Tigers in India are recognized as a single subspecies, but within India, and throughout the tiger's geographic range they tend to be smaller, darker, and more densely striped the further south they are found, the Sumatran and now extinct Javan and Bali races being the smallest. The Bengal is the nominate subspecies or species type, the definitive tiger. For many years it was the kind most commonly seen in the West. It was the standard issue zoo and circus tiger, and it was the Bengal tiger which conformed most fully to the image of a tiger in the Western psyche. It was the tiger of Kipling and the Raj. The Bengal tiger used to be known as the "Royal Bengal tiger", after it was hunted by the Duke of Windsor when he was Prince of Wales. Siegfried and Roy sometimes refer to their white tigers as "royal white tigers", possibly because of the white tiger's association with the Maharaja of Rewa. The French language version of the white tiger Wikipedia is titled "Tigre blanc royal" or "Royal white tiger." The white individuals do not constitute a separate subspecies on their own. They have pink noses, white to cream-coloured fur, and black, grey or chocolate-coloured stripes, grey mottled skin, and ice blue eyes. White tigers tend to be born larger and attain larger than average adult sizes than orange tigers which do not carry the white gene. This may have given them an advantage in the wild. White gene carriers, or heterozygotes, also tend to be larger than average in size. K.S. Sankhala, who was director of the New Delhi Zoo in the 1960s, said that one of the functions of the white gene may have been to keep a size gene in the population, in case it was ever needed. In the wild white tigers bred white for generations. It is a myth that white tigers did not thrive in the wild and India once planned to reintroduce them.

The condition occurs when inbreeding — usually between parents and cubs — produces offspring with two copies of a recessive gene. This is rare in nature, but with their unusual colouration, white tigers have become popular in zoos and entertainment that showcases exotic animals. For example, the magicians Siegfried and Roy are famous for having used trained white tigers in their performances. However, inbreeding often also leads to birth defects[1], which makes breeding for white colour somewhat controversial. Although it is actually possible to create white tigers without inbreeding, such cases are exceedingly rare.[citation needed]

Nevertheless, there are several hundred white tigers in captivity worldwide, and their numbers are on the increase. The French language version of the white tiger Wikipedia article puts the number at 800. There are about 100 white tigers in India. The modern population includes both pure Bengals and hybrid Bengal–Siberians, but it is unclear whether the recessive gene for white came from any of the Siberian ancestors, or only from Bengals.

Another genetic condition makes the stripes of the tiger very pale. White tigers with this condition are called snow-white.

White tigers drinking.
White tigers drinking.

Contents

[edit] Captive White Bengal Tiger Founders

[edit] Mohan

Mohan is the founding father of the captive bred white tigers of Rewa. He was captured as a cub in 1951 when maharaja Shri Martand Singh of Rewa and his hunting party in Bandhavgarh found a tigress with four 9-month-old cubs, one of which was white. All except the white cub were shot. The white cub was captured and housed at the unused Govindgarh Palace. The maharaja named him Mohan, which roughly translates as "Enchanter", one of the many forms of the God Krishna. The Maharaja shot a white tiger in 1948, and his father kept a male white tiger in captivity from 1915 to 1920. This white tiger, which was larger than average like most white tigers, was known to have a white male sibling, which continued to live in the wild. After the death of the captive animal it was mounted and presented to the Emperor King George V, as a token of loyalty. This specimen is now in the British Museum. This same Maharaja, the father of Shri Martand Singh, was once suspended by the British while he was under investigation for murder. There was a white tiger in the menagerie in Exeter Change in London in 1820, which was examined by the famous French anatomist Baron Cuvier, and described in his "Animal Kingdom" as having faint stripes only visible from certain angles of refraction.

In 1953, Mohan was bred to a normal-coloured wild tigress called Begum ("royal consort"), and they produced two male orange cubs on Sept. 7. In 1955 they had a litter of two males and two females on April 10 (which included a male named Sampson and a female named Radha). In 1956 they again had a litter of two males and two females on July 10, which included a male named Sultan who went to Ahmedabad Zoo, and a female named Vindhya who went to Delhi Zoo and was bred to an unrelated male named Suraj. These early breeding experiments failed to yield a single white cub. A maharaja who was a cousin of the Maharaja of Rewa observed "Rewa was frustrated. I told him the answer-incest of course!" Mohan was then bred to his daughter Radha (who carried the white gene inherited from him) and they produced a number of white cubs, including a litter of four on Oct. 30, 1958, which included a male named Raja, and three females named Rani, Mohini, and Sukishi. These four were the first white tigers born in captivity. Raja and Rani went to the New Delhi Zoo, and Mohini was bought by the German-American billionaire John W. Kluge (who is also known for the John W. Kluge Center of the Library of Congress and the John W. Kluge Prize, and owns the rights to the MASH TV series) for $10,000, for the US National Zoo, as a gift to the children of America, in 1960. In 1989 Kluge was the richest man in the world. Sukeshi remained at Govindgarh Palace, where she was born, in a harem courtyard, as a mate for Mohan.

The Indian government made a deal with the Maharaja, under the terms of which Raja and Rani would go to the New Delhi Zoo for free. In exchange the Maharaja's white tiger breeding would be subsidized and he would receive a share of their cubs. He wanted Rs 100,000 for them. The Indian Parliament used to hear reports on the progress of the white tigers, and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and U Nu of Burma participated in public christening ceremonies for white cubs at New Delhi Zoo. President Tito of Yugoslavia visited New Delhi Zoo and asked for white tigers for Belgrade Zoo, but was refused. A white tiger named Dalip from New Delhi Zoo represented India in two international expositions in Budapest and Osaka. The government of West Bengal bought two white males, named Niladari and Himadri, from the Maharaja for Calcutta Zoo, and an orange female named Malini, from the same litter of three born in 1960, accompanied them there. The Alipore Zoo in Calcutta, recovered the purchase price of the white tigers within six months by charging extra to see them. Calcutta Zoo had a fine specimen of a white tiger in 1920. Six zoos acquired white tigers from the Maharaja of Rewa including the Bristol Zoo in England (a brother and sister pair named Champak and Chameli on June 22, 1963) and the Crandon Park Zoo in Miami acquired a white tigress in 1968. Bristol Zoo's pair, born in 1962, came from another litter of four, all white, but two (one female and one male) didn't survive. It's astounding that Mohan and Radha produced another litter of four white cubs, as they did in 1958. By 1966 the Bombay Zoo had a white tigress named Lakshmi, born in 1964, from the Maharaja. The Calcutta Zoo sold a white tigress named Sefali to Gauhati Zoo and sent a second white tiger there on loan. By 1976 Lucknow Zoo also had a white tiger which was a gift from New Delhi Zoo. A white tigress named Nandni, who was born in New Delhi Zoo in 1971, went to Hyderabad Zoo. This is how the white tiger diaspora progressed. Zoos with white tigers constituted a most exclusive club and the white tigers themselves represented a single extended family. The Maharaja was negotiating the sale of a white male, named Virat, as late as 1976, when he died of enteritis. Virat was a son of Mohan and Sukeshi and the maharaja put him on the market after attempting to breed him to Sukeshi, which would have raised the inbreeding coefficient.

India imposed an export ban on white tigers in 1960, in an effort to preserve a monopoly, probably because Anglo-Indian naturalist E.P. Gee recommended that Govindgarh Palace, and it's white tiger inhabitants, be made a "national trust", which didn't happen. After the export ban was imposed the Maharaja threatened to release all of his white tigers into the Rewa forest, and so he was given dispensation to sell two more pairs abroad, to offset his costs. Mohini was only allowed to leave India because President Eisenhower intervened personally with Prime Minister Nehru, to ask for the release of the United States government's white tiger. A white sister of Mohini's was brought to New Delhi the year before to show the President, who was no stranger to white tigers. Circus owner Clyde Beatty also bought a white tiger from the Maharaja in 1960, for $10,000 in a deal facilitated by Washington Zoo director T.H. Reed, which had to be cancelled because of the export ban, which made Mohini even more valuable. She was estimated to be worth $28,000. Dr. Reed had travelled to India to escort Mohini to Washington. Years later the Bristol Zoo needed a new breeding male and traded a white female to New Delhi Zoo for a white tiger named Roop, who had been named by U Nu, the Prime Minister of Burma. He was the son of Raja by his own mother and half sister- Radha, born in New Delhi. Radha, and many other tigers from Govindgarh including Sukeshi, were later transferred to New Delhi. Begum went to live at Ahmedabad Zoo and was bred to her son Sultan. They produced twelve cubs in four litters between 1958 and 1961. Bristol Zoo later transferred two male white tigers to Dudley Zoo. In 1951 the Maharaja placed ads in The New York Times and The Times of London, and wrote to the director of the Manchester Zoo, and probably others, offering to sell his captured white tiger cub. He wanted the princely sum of $28,000 for Mohan. The Maharaja was prevented by law from converting rupees into American dollars, and wanted the money to buy a speed boat.

Mohan died in 1970, aged almost 20, and was laid to rest with Hindu rites as the palace staff observed official mourning. He was the last recorded white tiger born in the wild. The last white tiger reported in the wild was shot in 1958. Pushpraj Singh, the reigning Maharaja of Rewa, is asking students to sign a petition to ask the President of India to return at least two white tigers to Govindgarh Palace, as a tourist attraction.

[edit] Mohini

Mohini, a daughter of Mohan, was officially presented to President Eisenhower by John W. Kluge, in a ceremony on the White House lawn, on Dec. 5, 1960, and went to live at the Lion House, in the National Zoo, in Rock Creek Park. T.H. Reed, the director of the National Zoo, gave this description of Mohini: "Her stripes were black, shading into brown, but her main coat was eggshell white instead of the normal rufous orange. Exotic coloring and magnificent physique made her a tiger without peer. For a two year old kitten she had tremendous growth-almost 190 pounds, three feet tall at the shoulders, and eight feet from nose to tail." White tigers are larger and heavier than regular orange tigers. The average length of a white tiger at birth is 53 cm, compared to 50 cm for a normal orange cub. Shoulder height is 17 cm (normal 12 cm), weight 1.37 kg (normal 1.25 kg). Dalip and Krishna, two white tigers at New Delhi Zoo, weighed 139 kg and 120 kg respectively, at two years of age. Ram and Jim, two normal colored tigers at the same zoo, weighed 106 kg and 119 kg, at the same age. Raja, the white tiger, had a shoulder height of 100 cm, at ten years of age, while Suraj, an orange tiger, had a shoulder height of only 90 cm, at 12 years of age, according to New Delhi Zoo director K.S. Sankhala. Ratna and Vindhya, orange tigresses "from the white race", who carried the white gene as a recessive (both were fathered by Mohan), were higher at the shoulder than average, measuring 87 and 88 cm, compared to a normal orange tigress named Asharfi, who measured 82 cm at the shoulder. President Eisenhower was also given a rare pygmy hippo by the President of Liberia in 1960, and an elephant by the Congo in 1959. After arriving in the United States Mohini spent one night in the Bronx Zoo, and was then exhibited for three days in the Philadelphia Zoo, before travelling on to Washington. Her name is the feminine of Mohan, and translates as "Enchantress". She was her father's namesake. She was a great attraction, and the zoo wanted to breed more white tigers. At the time, no more white tigers were being allowed out of India, so Mohini was mated to Sampson, her uncle and half brother, who was sent from Ahmedabad Zoo in 1963. (It seems probable that financial considerations may have also precluded Washington from acquiring a second white tiger as a mate for Mohini.) After Sampson's death in 1966, at age 11 of kidney failure, Mohini was bred to her son Ramana, who was then the only male white gene carrier available. This resulted in the birth of a white daughter named Rewati on April 13, 1969 and a white son named Moni on Feb. 8, 1970. Moni died of a neurological disorder in 1971 at 16 months of age. Moni was to have undertaken a fund raising tour for Project Tiger. He was born in a litter of five, which included two white males and three orange females. One was stillborn and the mother crushed the others after three days. Rewati had an orange male littermate which died after two days. Ramana was born on July 1, 1964 and had two litter mates-a white male named Rajkumar, who was the first white tiger born in a zoo, and an orange female named Ramani. Both died of feline distemper despite having been vaccinated, at ten months age. Rajkumar had a particularly nasty disposition. All of Mohini's cubs were named by the Indian Ambassador.

The birth of Mohini's first litter was televised in a national special. Mohini's orange daughter Kesari was born in 1966 with an orange female who was stillborn. After Moni died in 1971 the National Zoo tried to acquire an orange tiger named Ram from Trivendrum Zoo, in southern India, as a mate for Mohini. Ram was her first cousin, a grandson of Mohan, and there was a 50% chance that he carried white genes. 25% of Ram's genes came from Mohan and 25% from Begum. 25% of Mohini's genes were from Begum and 75% from Mohan. Ram was a son of Vindhya and Suraj born on 23 IV 1965 at New Delhi Zoo, the same Ram discussed earlier who's average size may suggest that he didn't inherit the white gene. Two sisters of Ram, born on 22 Feb. 1967, went to the Romanshorn Zoo in Switzerland. In 1973 an orange tiger named Poona, from a white mother, named Homa (a daughter of Mohan and Sukeshi), and an unrelated orange father, named Moti, born at New Delhi Zoo, was sent to Washington from the Brookfield Zoo and bred to Mohini and Kesari. Like Ram, Poona was a grandson of Mohan. Mohini did not conceive. Kesari produced six orange cubs, an extraordinary number, especially for a first litter, but only one survived, a female named Marvina. Kesari handed Marvina over to her keepers and kept the other five. Marvina was mistaken for male, and named Marvin which was changed to Marvina when it was discovered that he was a she. Washington Zoo keeper Art Cooper, who hand reared Marvina, observed that white tigers were the most obstinate cats in the zoo, and said that Marvina had a typical white tiger personality. (Poona also fathered litters by two other tigresses in Brookfield and 50% of these cubs would have carried the white gene.) In 1974 Marvina, Ramana, and Kesari were sent to the Cincinnati Zoo, and Rewati and Mohini went to the Brookfield Zoo, to be boarded during renovations in Washington, until 1976. On June 20, 1974 while at the Cincinnati Zoo Ramana and Kesari produced a litter of three white and one orange cub, including a white male named Ranjit, two white females named Bharat and Priya, and an orange male named Peela. Devra Kleiman of the National Zoo said that she was well aware of the white gene and specifically told Cincinnati not to breed from any of these tigers-Ramana, Kesari, or Marvina. Cincinnati countered that although Ramana and Kesari had failed to breed in Washington they did so almost as soon as they arrived in Cincinnati.

As a fringe benefit of inbreeding the four cubs were pure-Bengal tigers, and they were the last registered Bengal tigers born in the United States. Ranjit, Bharat, Priya, Peela, and Rewati had inbreeding coefficients of 0.406. Ramana died in 1974 of a kidney infection and became a father for the last time posthumously. A white half sister of Mohini's bred from Mohan and his white daughter Sukishi born on March 26, 1966, named Gomti and later renamed Princess, lived in the Crandon Park Zoo in Miami for about a year before she died of a viral infection. She arrived in Miami on Jan. 13, 1968. She was so inbred that both her mother and grandmother were also her half sisters, and her father, Mohan, was also her grandfather and great grandfather. She was half sister and niece to Mohini. Mohan had fathered three generations of his family. Miami mayor Chuck Hall met the 22 month old 350 lbs. white tigress at the airport and rode with her to the zoo. He wanted to call her Maya, the name suggested by the Maharaja, which translates as Princess. Ralph S. Scott, who payed $35,000 for her and gave her to the Zoological Society of Florida, preferred the name Princess. It was Ralph S. Scott, a famous big game hunter, who suggested to John W. Kluge that he buy a white tiger for the children of America. He had seen the white tigers in Govindgarh Palace while tiger hunting in India. The government of India wanted Princess to be the last white tiger exported from the country. A male white tiger, named Ravi, acquired by Ralph S. Scott for the Crandon Park Zoo died at Kanpur railway station en route from India in 1967. He was a son of Raja and Rani, making him Princess's triple first cousin, born in New Delhi, and sold by the Maharaja of Rewa. Mohini died in 1979. The skins and skulls of Mohini and Moni are in the Smithsonian, but are not on display. An orange brother of Mohini's named Ramesh lived in Paris Zoo, and was bred to an unrelated tigress, but none of the offspring survived to reproduce. Ramesh was born in Govindgarh Palace and had an orange female littermate, named Ratna who went to New Delhi Zoo, had a white male littermate named Ramu. They were the fourth and last litter of Mohan and Radha. Ratna was paired with a wild caught male named Jim, at New Delhi Zoo, and produced three litters. Each cub would have had a 50% chance of inheriting the white gene from Ratna. Jim was captured in the Rewa forest, so they thought there was a chance he carried white genes. He had been somebody's pet, but after he ate a cat he was given to New Delhi Zoo. Jim used to appear leaping into his pond, at New Delhi Zoo, in the opening of one of Gerald Durrell's TV shows. E.P. Gee mentioned, in his book "The Wildlife Of India", that Bristol Zoo wanted to acquire one of the cubs of Mohan and Begum, as a mate for one of it's white tigers, Champak or Chameli, to lessen the degree of inbreeding, as the US National Zoo had done through the acquisition of Sampson. In 1987 Ranjit, Bharat, Priya, and Peela were sold to the International Animal Exchange. Ranjit, Priya, and Peela went to the IAE's facility in Grand Prairie, Texas.

[edit] Tony

Tony, born in July of 1972 in Peru, Indiana, was the founder of many American white tiger lines, especially those used in circuses. His grandfather was a registered Siberian tiger, named Kubla, who was born at the Como Zoo in St. Paul, Minnesota. His parents were born in the wild and believed to be brother and sister. He was bred to a Bengal tigress named Susie, from a west coast zoo, at the Sioux Falls Zoo in South Dakota. Two of their cubs (Rajah and Sheba II) were bred together in a brother–sister mating, by self-styled "Baron" Julius Von Uhl, then a trainer with the Shrine Circus, who lived in Peru, Indiana. Julius Von Uhl came to America in 1956 from Hungary after the revolution. One of the results of his tiger breeding was Tony. Tony therefore carried mixed blood and was responsible for introducing Siberian genes into previously pure Bengal lines in North America. He may also be the source of a gene for stripelessness. Tigers of mixed or unknown ancestry are called generics, or even "trash tigers", by zoo people.

In 1973 there were four white tigers in the United States: Mohini and her daughter Rewati in Washington DC, Tony, and his first cousin named Bagheera,a female born on July 8, 1972 in a litter of two white cubs, including a male which didn't survive, in the Hawthorn Circus of John F. Cuneo Jr. Bagheera's mother, Sheba III, was a sister of Tony's mother, Sheba II. Bagheera's father was either her registered Amur uncle and preferred mate, named Ural, or one of two of her brothers, named Prince and Saber, who were also brothers to Tony's parents, which would make their offspring quadruple first cousins. Sheba III lived to be 26, an astonishing age for a tiger. (This may be the tiger world record for longevity. 20 is extremely old for a tiger.) Most of Sheba III's litters did not include white cubs, but at least 50% of her orange cubs would have been white gene carriers, since they could have inherited the gene from their mother, and if both parents were heterozygotes 66%, or two out of three, of their orange cubs are likely to have been carriers. Prince was castrated before Sheba III conceived another white cub, a male named Frosty, born on Feb. 25, 1975, in a litter which included two orange females and one orange male. Frosty severely mauled trainer Wade Burck. It seems odd that a tiger which may have been fathering such valuable cubs (Prince) would have been neutered. Saber was never observed trying to mate, so perhaps Ural, also called Genghis, did sire one or more of Sheba III's white cubs, which would have been three quarters Siberian had this been the case. It is possible for tigers from the same litter to have different fathers. It's also possible that any or all three tigers-Ural, Prince, and Saber, carried the white gene.

Tony was purchased by John F. Cuneo Jr., owner of the Hawthorn Circus Corp. of Grayslake, Illinois, in Feb. 1975 for $20,000 in Detroit, and later bred with orange tigresses, named Rani and Baby, who were his first cousins, in the Hawthorn Circus, resulting in more white offspring. Tony's parents, Raja and Sheba, produced two more white cubs at the Baltimore County Fair on June 27, 1976. The cubs were a white male, named "Baltimore County Fair", a white female named "Snowball", and an orange male. Tony was sent on breeding loan to the Cincinnati Zoo in 1976, to be bred to Rewati from the US National Zoo. However, Tony and Rewati did not breed, so he was bred to Mohini's orange daughter Kesari instead, resulting in a litter of four white and one orange cub June 27, 1976, the same day that eight year old Sheba had her white cubs in Baltimore. It is an astounding coincidence that both tigresses gave birth to white cubs on the exact same day. On that one day America's white tiger population nearly doubled from 8 to 14. Kesari's 1976 litter represented a mixture of the two unrelated strains. All of the white cubs from Kesari's 1976 litter by Tony were cross-eyed, as were Rewati and Bagheera. The Cincinnati Zoo retained a brother and sister pair from the litter, named Bhim and Sumita, and their orange sister Kamala. Two white males returned to the Hawthorn Circus with Tony as John Cuneo's share from the breeding loan. John Cuneo also asked the Bristol Zoo to trade some white tigers, to diversify the gene pool, but the Bristol Zoo declined, perhaps not wishing to exchange pure-Bengals for mongrels. Tony, Bagheera, and Frosty lived for years with a troop of Hawthorn Circus tigers stationed at at Marineland and Game Farm, in Niagara Falls, Canada. Bhim and Sumita became the world record parents of white cubs. In 1976 there were 39 white tigers-7 in New Delhi, 7 in Calcutta, one in Gauhati, one in Lucknow, one in Hyderabad, 8 in Bristol, Cincinnati Zoo had 2, Washington had 5, John Cuneo had 5, and Julius Von Uhl had 2. The Maharaja of Rewa retired from the white tiger business in 1976. He later abdicated in favor of his son so that he could run for the family seat in parliament and became an MP. There is a white tiger cub on the shield of the coat of arms of the Maharajas of Rewa.

Over 70 white tigers have been born at the Cincinnati Zoo, which is no longer in the white tiger business. The Cincinnati Zoo sold white tigers for $60,000 each. Siegfried and Roy bought a litter of three white cubs from the Cincinnati Zoo, which were offspring of Bhim and Sumita, for around $125,000. Prior to 1974 the Cincinnati Zoo wanted to acquire a white tiger, but no zoo would sell at any price. By the 1980s the Cincinnati Zoo was the world's leading purveyor of white tigers. After 1976 at least one more white tiger born at the Cincinnati Zoo was cross eyed, a cub from Bhim and Sumita's first litter. Crossed eyes may be reduced or eliminated through selective breeding, as it has been in Siamese cats. Critics refer to white tiger breeding as "proliferation", and the Cincinnati Zoo was derided as a "white tiger mill". The Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha bought Tony's parents and orange sister Obie in 1978, and bred more white tigers. Some of Tony's white siblings born in Omaha proved to be sterile. Obie was paired with Ranjit from the National Zoo, and their cubs like those of Tony and Kesari, included non inbred white tigers. A white tiger named Chester, who was a son of Ranjit and Obie, born at the Omaha Zoo, fathered the first test tube tigers, and then became the first white tiger in Australia when he was sent to the Taronga Zoo in Sydney. His brother, Panghur Ban, was the National Zoo's last white tiger. A white tiger named Rajiv, a son of Bhim, became the first white tiger in Africa, when he was sent to Pretoria Zoo in exchange for a king cheetah. In 1984 Rewati was paired with Ika, from Kesari's 1976 litter, at the Columbus Zoo. By this time he was a three legged amputee retired from circus performance, put out to pasture to breed. Ika killed Rewati in the act of mating. Ika was then mated with a white tigress named Taj, who was a grand daughter of his brothers Ranjit and Bhim, and fathered white cubs in Columbus. Ika and Taj had a cross eyed daughter named Lilly, who appeared on The David Letterman Show with Jack Hanna in 1986, as her mother Taj had done years earlier. Ika was also bred to Taj's orange mother Dolly, a daughter of Bhim and an unrelated orange tigress named Kimanthi, in Columbus. Taj's father, Duke, was a son of Ranjit from an outcross to an unrelated orange tigress. Isson, a white grand son of Kesari, was also dispatched to Columbus on breeding loan from the Hawthorn Circus, of Grayslake, Illinois, which eventually had 80 white tigers. In 1980 a white cub was born in the Racine Zoo in Wisconsin, from a father-daughter mating. The father, named Bucky, killed the white cub and the mother, Bonnie, was later bred with an orange littermate of Tony named "Chequila", who belonged to a man living in Ravenna, Ohio. Chequila proved to be a white gene carrier and fathered at least one white cub in the Racine Zoo. It is not known whether Bucky, who came from the Indianapolis Zoo, and his daughter Bonnie were related to any of the established strains of white tigers. In 2007 a white tiger was born at Safari Game Park in Bandon, Oregon. The tiger, Sultan, is currently (Oct. 2007) publicly exhibited where children and adults can play with it and hold it. It's mother is also at the game park.

[edit] Orissa White Tigers

Three white tigers were also born in the Nandankanan Zoo in Bhubaneswar, Orissa, India in 1980. Their parents were an orange father–daughter pair called Deepak and Ganga, who were not related to Mohan or any other captive white tiger – one of their wild-caught ancestors would have carried the recessive white gene, and it showed up when Deepak was mated to his daughter. Deepak's sister also turned out to be a white gene carrier. These white tigers are therefore referred to as the Orissa strain, as opposed to the Rewa strain, of white tigers founded by Mohan. When the surprise birth of three white cubs occurred there was a white tigress already living at the zoo, named Diana, from New Delhi Zoo. One of the three was later bred to her creating another blend of two unrelated strains of white tigers. This lineage resulted in several white tigers in Nandankanan Zoo. Today the Nandankanan Zoo has the largest collection of white tigers in India. The Cincinnati Zoo acquired two female white tigers from the Nadankanan, in the hopes of establishing a line of pure-Bengal white tigers in America, but they never got a male, and didn't receive authorization from the Association Of Zoos And Aquarium (AZA)'s Species Survival Program (SSP) to breed them. The AZA has recommended that white tigers be "bred to extinction", which is to say, not bred at all and allowed to die out, because they consume space and resources needed for endangered orange tigers. White tigers are freaks and have no value to conservation. It has been suggested that as few as 1 in 10,000 tigers in the wild was white. The white tiger is a domesticated breed. White tigers are curiosities which hardly warrant a footnote in any serious treatise on tigers, and although many AZA member zoos still keep them, as an attraction to generate revenue, almost none breed them. K.S. Sankhala once asked Sally Walker of the Zoo Outreach Organization, of Tamil Nadu, India-"Why do foreigners hate our white tigers so much?" The Zoo Outreach Organization used to publish studbooks for white tigers, which were compiled by A.K. Roychoudhury of the Bose Institute in Calcutta, and subsidized by the Humane Society of India. The Columbus Zoo had also hoped to breed pure-Bengal white tigers, but were unable to obtain a white registered Bengal mate for Rewati from India. There were also surprise births of white tigers in the Asian Circus, in India, to parents not known to have been white gene carriers, or heterozygotes, and not known to have any relationship to any other white tiger strains. There was a white cub born at Mysore Zoo from orange parents descended from Deepak's sister. On August 29, 1979 a white tigress named Seema was dispatched to Kanpur Zoo to be bred to Badal, a tiger who was a fourth generation descendant of Mohan and Begum. The pair did not breed so it was decided to pair Seema with one of two wild caught, notorious man eaters, either Sheru or Titu, from Corbett National Park. Seema and Sheru produced a white cub which didn't stay white. There have been other cases of tiger, lion, and leopard cubs being born white, and then changing to normal color. White tigers which were a mixture of the Rewa and Orissa strains, born at the Nandankanan Zoo, were non inbred. A white tiger from out of the Orissa strain found it's way to the Western Plains Zoo in Australia. Australia's Dreamworld, on the Gold Coast, wanted to breed this tiger to one of their white tigers from the United States, acquired from Croatian-American tiger trainer Josip Marcan, who was a trainer with the Hawthorn Circus and had also worked as a veterinarian at the Frankfurt Zoo. The Western Plains Zoo rejected the idea.

[edit] Stripeless (Snow White) Tigers

This nearly stripeless tiger is on display at The Mirage in Las Vegas, Nevada
This nearly stripeless tiger is on display at The Mirage in Las Vegas, Nevada

An additional genetic condition can remove most of the striping of a white tiger, making the animal almost pure white. One such specimen was exhibited at Exeter Change in England in 1820 and described by Georges Cuvier ("A white variety of Tiger is sometimes seen, with the stripes very opaque, and not to be observed except in certain angles of light")[2], Richard Lydekker ("a white tiger, in which the fur was of a creamy tint, with the usual stripes faintly visible in certain parts, was exhibited at the old menagerie at Exeter Change about the year 1820")[3], Hamilton Smith ("A wholly white tiger, with the stripe-pattern visible only under reflected light, like the pattern of a white tabby cat, was exhibited in the Exeter Change Menagerie in 1820") and John George Wood ("a creamy white, with the ordinary tigerine stripes so faintly marked that they were only visible in certain lights".) Edwin Landseer also drew this tigress in 1824.

The modern strain of snow white tigers came from repeated brother–sister matings of Bhim and Sumita at Cincinnati zoo. The gene involved possibly came from the Siberian tiger, via their part-Siberian ancestor Tony. Continued inbreeding appears to have caused a recessive gene for stripelessness to show up. About one fourth of Bhim and Sumita's offspring were stripeless. Their striped white offspring, which have been sold to zoos around the world, may also carry the stripeless gene.

Because Tony is present in many white tiger pedigrees, the gene may also be present in other captive white tigers. As a result, stripeless whites have occurred in zoos as far afield as the Czech Republic, Spain and Mexico. Stage magicians Siegfried and Roy were the first to attempt to breed selectively for stripelessness; they own snow white Bengal tigers taken from Cincinnati Zoo (Tsumura, Mantra, Mirage and Akbar-Kabul) and Guadalajara, Mexico (Vishnu and Jahan), and a stripeless Siberian tiger called Apollo.

In 2004, a blue-eyed, stripeless white tiger was born at a wildlife refuge in Alicante, Spain. Its parents are normal orange Bengals. The cub was named Artico ("Arctic"). Stripeless white tigers were thought to be sterile until Siegfried and Roy's stripeless white tigress Sitarra, a daughter of Bhim and Sumita, gave birth. Another variation which came out of the white strains are unusually light orange tigers called golden tabby tigers. These may be orange tigers which carry the stripeless white gene as a recessive. Some white tigers in India have been very dark nearly reverting to orange.

[edit] Genetics & albinism

A white tiger in captivity at Wrocław zoo. The presence of stripes indicate it is not a true albino.
A white tiger in captivity at Wrocław zoo. The presence of stripes indicate it is not a true albino.

Contrary to popular belief, white tigers are not albinos; true albino tigers would have no stripes. The stripeless white tigers known today only have very pale stripes. There is, in fact, no evidence of true albinisms in modern tigers.

Part of the confusion is due to the misidentification of the so-called chinchilla gene (for white) as an allele of the albino series (publications prior to the 1980s refer to it as an albino gene). The mutation is recessive to normal color, which means that two orange tigers carrying the mutant gene may produce white offspring, and white tigers bred together will produce only white cubs. The stripe color varies due to the influence and interaction of other genes.

While the inhibitor ("chinchilla") gene affects the color of the hair shaft, there is a separate "wide-band" gene affecting the distance between the dark bands of colour on agouti hairs.Robinson et al, Roy (1999). Genetics for Cat Breeders and Veterinarians. Butterworth-Heinemann. ISBN 978-0750640695.  An orange tiger who inherits two copies of this wide-band gene becomes a golden tabby; a white who inherits two copies becomes almost or completely stripeless. Inbreeding allows the effect of recessive genes to show up, hence the ground and stripe colour variations among white tigers.

As early as 1907, naturalist Richard Lydeker doubted the existence of albino tigers.[4] However, we do have a report of true albinism: in 1922, two pink-eyed albino young were shot along with their mother at Mica Camp, Tisri, in Cooch Behar District, according to Victor N Narayan in a ”Miscellaneous Note” in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. The albinos were described as sickly-looking sub-adults, with extended necks and pink eyes.

[edit] Inbreeding depression

Because of the extreme rarity of the white tiger allele in the wild[citation needed], the breeding pool was limited to the small number of white tigers in captivity. Inbreeding between these tigers often leads to defects. Due to the high market value for white tigers, unscrupulous breeders will still inbreed white tigers to ensure the offspring also exhibit the recessive gene. Some animal rights activists have called for a halt to the breeding of white tigers altogether.

Outside of India, highly inbred white tigers are prone to crossed eyes (strabismus) due to incorrectly routed visual pathways in the brain (when stressed or confused all white tigers cross their eyes according to tiger trainer Andy Goldfarb), star-gazing and postural problems. A weakened immune system is directly linked to reduced pigmentation. White tigers react strangely to anesthesia due to their inability to synthesize the tyrosinase enzyme, a trait shared with true albinos. Strabismus is associated with white tigers of mixed Bengal/Siberian ancestry. Only one pure Bengal white tiger was reported to be cross-eyed: Mohini's daughter Rewati. Strabismus is directly linked to the white gene and is not a separate result of inbreeding. Siamese cats and albinos, of every species which has been studied, exhibit the same visual pathway abnormality found in white tigers. Siamese cats are also known to be cross-eyed in some cases, as are some albino ferrets. The visual pathway abnormality was first documented in a white tiger in the brain of Moni after he died, although his eyes were in normal alignment. There is a disruption of the optic chiasm. The examination of Moni's brain suggested that the disruption may be less pronounced in white tigers than it is in Siamese cats. Because of the visual pathway abnormality, by which some of the optic nerves are routed to the wrong side of the brain, some white cubs have a problem with spatial orientation and bump into things until they learn to compensate. Some compensate by crossing their eyes.

White tigers, Siamese cats, and Himalayan rabbits have enzymes in their fur which react to temperature, making their fur darken in cold. This is why Siamese cats and Himalayan rabbits are darker on their face, ears, legs, and tail, where the cold penetrates more easily. K.S. Sankhala, who was director of the New Delhi Zoo in the 1960s, observed that white tigers are always whiter in Rewa, even when they are born in New Delhi and returned to there. "In spite of living in a dusty courtyard they were always snow white" (in Rewa). Rewati also had a crooked spine, shortened limbs, and her reproductive cycle was irregular, making her a poor candidate for breeding. This may be why the National Zoo did not elect to breed her with Poona, while he was on breeding loan to Washington in 1973, but because of the rarity and demand for white tigers she was later bred by Robert Baudy, in Center Hill, Florida, to an unrelated orange Amur tiger, but did not conceive. A white Amur tiger may have been born at Center Hill, and given rise to a strain of white Amur tigers. The white tigers pictured on the French language version of the white tiger wikipedia are at the Beauval Zoo, in France, and came from Center Hill. Rewati also lived at the Bronx Zoo for several years and they may have attempted to breed her.

It has been possible to expand the white gene pool by outcrossing white tigers with unrelated orange tigers and then using the cubs to produce more white tigers. Poona was the result of an outcross between a white tiger and an unrelated orange tiger at the New Delhi Zoo. Ranjit, Bharat, Priya, and Bhim were all outcrossed; in some instances to more than one tiger. Bharat was bred to an unrelated orange tiger named Jack, from San Francisco Zoo, and had an orange daughter named Kanchana. Bharat and Priya were also bred with an unrelated orange tiger from Knoxville Zoo, and Ranjit was bred to this tiger's sister, also from Knoxville Zoo. Bhim fathered several litters by an unrelated orange tigress named Kimanthi, at the Cincinnati Zoo. Ranjit had several mates at the Omaha Zoo. The last descendants of Bristol Zoo's white tigers were a group of orange tigers from outcrosses, which were bought by a Pakistani senator and shipped to Pakistan. Rajiv, Pretoria Zoo's white tiger, who was born in the Cincinnati Zoo and became the first white tiger in Africa when he was traded for a king cheetah, was also outcrossed and sired at least two litters of orange cubs at Pretoria Zoo. Outcrossing isn't necessarily done with the intent of producing more white cubs by resuming inbreeding further down the line. The National Zoo no longer keeps any Bengal tigers and has shifted its focus to endangered Sumatran tigers. The Cincinnati Zoo has more recently bred endangered Indo-Chinese tigers. The drawbacks of outcrossing are the loss of a generation and the production of surplus cubs which may become "castoffs", and be discarded after they have been used to propagate the next generation of white tigers.

Today white tigers are so numerous that many are in sanctuaries for unwanted tigers. The Lowery Park Zoo in Tampa has four white tigers, which are "rescue tigers", and may also be pure-Amur tigers. White tigers and white lions have been used in canned hunts, and there are white tigers being bred in Asian tiger farms, to be slaughtered like pigs, for their body parts. In the United States white tigers are in the hands of many shady profit-motivated private owners and breeders, and white tigers have been sold to drug lords.[citation needed] White tigers have been relegated from royal palace to roadside zoo in 56 years.

Perhaps the mongrelization of white tigers has been a mixed blessing, since although the introduction of Amur genes into the white strain has further delegitimized white tigers for zoo conservation purposes, it's possible that hybrid vigor has counteracted inbreeding depression and created healthier bloodlines. Outcrossing is a way of bringing fresh blood into the white strain. The new Delhi Zoo loaned out white tigers to various zoos in India for outcrossing, and the government had to impose a whip to force zoos to return either the white tigers or their orange offspring. As previously stated Poona, the Brookfield Zoo's orange tiger, was the product of an outcross between a white female named Homa, a daughter of Mohan and Sukeshi, and an unrelated orange tiger named Moti. Siegfried and Roy did at least one outcross. In the mid 1980s they offered to collaborate with the Indian government in the creation of a healthier strain of white tigers. The Indian government was reportedly studying the offer, but may not have wished to have their white tigers mongrelized like those in America. In the mid 1980s Siegfried and Roy owned 10% of the world's white tigers. In the 1980s Siegfried and Roy were escorting two big, dark striped, white tiger cubs to their new home at Phantasialand, in Bruhl, Germany, when the white tigers and their truck were briefly stolen in New York City, when the driver stopped for coffee. The white tigers made their debut in Germany at a ceremony attended by the United States Ambassador. Fritz Wurm's safari park in Germany bought a pair of white tigers from the Cincinnati Zoo, and Joan Collins attended the opening of the golden domed white tiger pavilion, at the safari park in Stukenbrock, Germany.

Mohini was checked for Chediak-Higashi Syndrome, but the results were inconclusive. This is similar to albino mutations, and causes bluish lightening of the fur color, crossed eyes, and prolonged bleeding in the event of surgery or injury, the blood is slow to coagulate, in domesticated cats. In fact Chediak-Hegashi Syndrome is itself a form of albinism, and whiteness in tigers could be categorized as a genetic disease. There has never been a case of a white tiger having Chediak-Hegashi Syndrome. Other genetic problems include shortened tendons of the forelegs, clubfoot, central retinal degeneration (reported in a single male white tiger in the Milwaukee County Zoo, may not have been related to inbreeding, but possibly to the reduced pigmentation in the eye) , kidney problems, arched or crooked backbone and twisted neck. Reduced fertility and miscarriages, noted by ”tiger man” Kailash Sankhala, were attributed to inbreeding depression. Some of the white tigers born to North American lines have bulldog faces with a snub nose, jutting jaw, domed head and wide-set eyes with an indentation between the eyes. However, some of these traits have also been linked to poor diet. The white gene is recessive, and therefore must be inherited from both parents, to produce a white tiger. Inbreeding is a conscious strategy to promote homozygosity in white tigers. Instead of carrying white genes which give them their white coat, they carry orange genes that are "switched off."

[edit] Historical records

While the modern population descends from Rewan tigers, white tigers may have been recorded as far afield as China and Korea, Nepal, Myanmar, the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and Java. Historically, white tigers may have been reported in northern China, in the geographic range of the Siberian tiger, and perhaps in the Indo-Chinese, Sumatran and Javan subspecies, but not among South China, Caspian or Bali tigers. Arthur Locke writing in "The Tigers Of Trengganu" (1954) mentions white tigers, but it's unclear whether he means specifically in Trengganu, in the Malay Peninsula, or elsewhere in Asia, in which case there may be no record of white tigers ever existing in the Malay Peninsula. The Malayan tiger (Panther tigris malayensis or jacksoni) was only recognized as a subspecies separate from the Indo-Chinese (Panthera tigris corbetti) in 2004, and the Indo-Chinese as a subspecies separate from the Bengal in 1968. White tigers were reported from Burma, now called Myanmar, but since the Irrawaddy River (Ayeyarwady since 1998) is the theoretical dividing line between the range of the Bengal and Indo-Chinese tiger, it is uncertain whether there were also white Indo-Chinese tigers.

In some regions, the animal forms part of local tradition. In China, it was revered as the god of the West, Baihu. In South Korea, a white tiger will sometimes be represented on the taeguk emblem on the flag – the symbolising evil, opposite the green dragon for good. In Indian superstition, the white tiger was the incarnation of a Hindu deity, and anyone who killed it would die within a year. Sumatran and Javan royalty claimed descent from white tigers, and the animals were regarded as the reincarnations of royalty. In Java the white tiger was associated with the vanished Hindu kingdoms and with ghosts and spirits. It was also the icon guardian of the seventeenth century court.

White tigers with dark stripes were recorded in the wild in India during the Mughal Period (1556–1605). A painting from 1590 of Akbar on hunting near Gwalior depicts four tigers, two of which appear white. As many as 17 instances of white tigers were recorded in India between 1907 and 1933 in several separate locations: Orissa, Bilaspur, Sohagpur and Rewa.

Between 1892 and 1922, white tigers were routinely shot in India in places such as Orissa, Upper Assam, Bilaspur, Cooch Behar and Poona. Pollock (1900) reported white tigers from Burma and the Jynteah hills of Meghalaya. In the 1920s and 30s, fifteen white tigers were killed in Bihar, and more were shot in other regions. On 22 January 1939, the Prime Minister of Nepal shot a white tiger at Barda camp in Terai Nepal. The last observed wild white tiger was shot in 1958, and the mutation is considered extinct in the wild [citation needed]. The slaughter of so many orange tigers may have killed the carriers of the mutant gene.NN

[edit] Popular culture

Cover of Vapen & ammunition
Cover of Vapen & ammunition
  • In Ronin Warriors, Ryu's pet/fighting partner named "White Blaze" (Byauken in the original) was a white striped tiger.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Baskin, Carole; Dan Laughlin. The White Tiger Fraud. Big Cat Rescue. Retrieved on 2007-06-19.
  2. ^ Cuvier, Georges (1832). The Animal Kingdom. G & C & H Carvill. 
  3. ^ Lydekker, Richard (1893). The Royal Natural History. Frederick Warne. 
  4. ^ Lydekker, Richard (1907). The Game animals of India, Burma, Malaya and Tibet: Being a now and Rev. Ed. of The Great and Small Game of India, Burma and Tibet. Rowland Ward. 
  • Leyhausen, Paul and Reed, Theodore H., "The white tiger: care and breeding of a genetic freak." Smithsonian April 1971
  • Park, Edwards "Around The Mall And Beyond." Smithsonian September 1979
  • Reed, Elizabeth C., "White Tiger In My House." National Geographic May 1970
  • Reed, Theodore H. "Enchantess: Queen Of An Indian Palace Rare White Tigress Comes To Washington." National Geographic May 1961.
  • "Genetic abnormality of the visual pathways in a "white" tiger" R.W. Guillery and J.H. Kaas Science June 22, 1973
  • "Cross-eyed tigers" Scientific American 229:43 August 1973
  • "Now He's The Cat's Meow" Dan Geringer Sports Illustrated Vol. 65 No. 3 July 21, 1986
  • "Here Kitty Kitty: Cincinnati Zoo Breeds Five Rare White Tigers" People Weekly 21:97-9 January 23, 1984
  • "White Tiger: An Indian Maharaja Is Trying To Sell His Rare Cub To A U.S. Zoo." Life 31:69 October 15, 1951
  • "White Tiger From India" Life 49: 47-8 December 19, 1960
  • "Grrr! Ownership of a rare white tiger disputed." The Detroit News February 11, 1975 Section A pg. 3;
  • Berrier, H.H., Robinson, F.R., Reed, T.H., & Gray, C.W., "The white tiger enigma" Veterinary Medicine/Small Animal Clinician 1975 467-472;
  • Thornton, I.W.B., K.K. Yeung & K.S. Sankhala. 1967. The genetics of white tigers in Rewa. J. Zool. 152: 127-35
  • Thornton, I.W.B. 1978. White tiger genetics-further evidence. J. Zool. 185:389-394
  • Sankhala, K.S., "Tiger!" *Iverson, S.J. (1982) "Breeding white tigers." Zoogoer 11:5-12; *Bernays, M.E., Smith, Rie "Convergent strabismus in a white tiger." Australian Vet. J. Vol. 77, No. 3, March 1999; *"Indian rajah offers to sell rare white cub", N.Y. Times and London Times ads June 22, 1951; *"White tiger exports banned, India, N.Y. Times D. 4, 1960 12:2; *"'White' Tigress Arrives by Air On Way to Zoo in Washington." N.Y. Times Dec. 1, 1960 pg. 37 L+; *"Eisenhower Is Wary as He meets a 'White' Tiger." N.Y. Times Dec. 6, 1960 pg. 47 L+; *Husain, Dawar "Breeding And Hand-Rearing Of White Tiger Cubs Panthera tigris At Delhi Zoo." The International Zoo Yearbook Vol VI 1966; *Greed, R.E., "White Tigers, Panthera tigris, At Bristol Zoo." The International Zoo Yearbook Vol. V 1965; *Bruning, Fred, "Hall Has A White Tiger by the Handle." The Miami Herald Jan. 14, 1968; *"Lady Is A Tiger." The Miami Herald Jan. 19, 1968; "First White Tiger In Africa" & "How To Breed A White Tiger." Zoon No. 29, 1988-4; "Rare Tigers Born At Fair." The New York Times June 28, 1976; *Beehler, B.A., Moore, C.P., Picket, J.P., "Central retinal degeneration in a white Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris)" Proc. Am. Assoc. Zoo Vet., 1984; * Roychoudhury, A.K., The Indian White Tiger Studbook (1989);

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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