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Page 1 of 22 The Royal White Tiger A complete documented study into one of the zoo industry's strongest conservation tool. “The white tiger should be viewed as a gift of Nature. It’s conservation is as important as that of the normal tiger”. [p. 386, Tigers of the World: the biology, biopolitics, management and conservation. Tilson/Ulysses] The Royal White Tiger is one of the most valuable conservation tools that zoos and theme parks have in their education arsenal on the visitor level today. Very simply put, the White Tiger attracts attention of the zoo visitor. Without the attention of the common visitor, you could have the best conservation program in the world, but it will do no good unless you have the "attention". Hundreds of thousands of visitors flock to such zoos and parks each year to see such animals. The White Tiger has always captivated visitors of its beauty and its history. Zoo's and theme parks that are actively involved in conservation programs depend on large revenue budgets to obtain successes in this area. The old saying of "No bucks,....no Buck Rogers..." still applies today. The bottom line is, that conservation and education cost. It cost greatly! So zoos and parks depend on the "heavy hitters" like the White Tigers to bring people in the gates, not only to help fund these massive and very important and expensive programs, but to also spark the conservation enthusiasm in its visitors. Just one example, the AZA accredited Blank Park Zoo in Ohio brought in a quest white tiger for just one season, and the zoo's attendance increased 117%. [i1] In today's conservation battles, zoos and theme parks have to compete with a huge aray of entertainment and modern technology in today's world just to be able to get the attention of the average zoo visitor. But one thing that has not changed over the years, and still is very much able to get the attention of zoo visitors is the White Tiger. White Tiger Inventory - AZA Accredited Zoo’s 2011 Zoo Name State Qty Montgomery Zoo AL 1 Wildlife World Zoo AZ 2 Colorado Oceans Journey CO 2* Brandywine Zoo DE 2 Busch Gardens FL 7* The Zoo FL 1 Honolulu Zoo HI 2 Topeka Zoological Park KS 2 Alexandria Zoological Park LA 2* Audubon Zoo LA 2* Baton Rouge Zoo LA 1* Franklin Park Zoo MA 2 Henry Doorly Zoo NE 3* Riverside Zoo NE 1 Roosevelt Zoo ND 1 Cincinnati Zoo OH 2* Erie Zoo PA 1 Philadelphia Zoo PA 2* Bramble Zoo SD 1 Nashville Zoo TN 2 Fort Worth Zoo TX 3* Houston Zoological Gardens TX 1 Houston’s Downtown Aquarium TX 2* Mill Mountain Zoo VA 2 Caldwell Zoo TX 2* Six Flags Discovery Kingdom CA 3* Abilene Zoo TX 1 Gladys Porter Zoo TX 5 TOTAL ROYAL WHITE TIGERS ON EXHIBIT 55 * = Zoo has very active advertising campaign with White Tigers

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Page 1: The Royal White Tiger - All About White Tigers program in the world, ... as "royal white tigers" from the white tiger's association with the Maharaja of Rewa, which is considered royalty

Page 1 of 22

The Royal White TigerA complete documented study into one of the zoo industry's strongest conservation tool.

“The white tiger should be viewed as a gift of Nature. It’s conservation is asimportant as that of the normal tiger”. [p. 386, Tigers of the World: the biology,biopolitics, management and conservation. Tilson/Ulysses]

The Royal White Tiger is one of the most valuable conservation tools that zoos and theme parks havein their education arsenal on the visitor level today. Very simply put, the White Tiger attractsattention of the zoo visitor. Without the attention of the common visitor, you could have the bestconservation program in the world, but it will do no good unless you have the "attention".

Hundreds of thousands of visitors flock to such zoos and parks each year to see such animals. TheWhite Tiger has always captivated visitors of its beauty and its history. Zoo's and theme parks thatare actively involved in conservationprograms depend on large revenuebudgets to obtain successes in this area.The old saying of "No bucks,....no BuckRogers..." still applies today. Thebottom line is, that conservation andeducation cost. It cost greatly! So zoosand parks depend on the "heavy hitters"like the White Tigers to bring people inthe gates, not only to help fund thesemassive and very important andexpensive programs, but to also sparkthe conservation enthusiasm in itsvisitors. Just one example, the AZAaccredited Blank Park Zoo in Ohiobrought in a quest white tiger for justone season, and the zoo's attendanceincreased 117%. [i1]

In today's conservation battles, zoos andtheme parks have to compete with ahuge aray of entertainment and moderntechnology in today's world just to beable to get the attention of the averagezoo visitor. But one thing that has notchanged over the years, and still is verymuch able to get the attention of zoovisitors is the White Tiger.

White Tiger Inventory - AZA Accredited Zoo’s 2011

Zoo Name State Qty

Montgomery Zoo AL 1Wildlife World Zoo AZ 2Colorado Oceans Journey CO 2*Brandywine Zoo DE 2Busch Gardens FL 7*The Zoo FL 1Honolulu Zoo HI 2Topeka Zoological Park KS 2Alexandria Zoological Park LA 2*Audubon Zoo LA 2*Baton Rouge Zoo LA 1*Franklin Park Zoo MA 2Henry Doorly Zoo NE 3*Riverside Zoo NE 1Roosevelt Zoo ND 1Cincinnati Zoo OH 2*Erie Zoo PA 1Philadelphia Zoo PA 2*Bramble Zoo SD 1Nashville Zoo TN 2Fort Worth Zoo TX 3*Houston Zoological Gardens TX 1Houston’s Downtown Aquarium TX 2*Mill Mountain Zoo VA 2Caldwell Zoo TX 2*Six Flags Discovery Kingdom CA 3*Abilene Zoo TX 1Gladys Porter Zoo TX 5

TOTAL ROYAL WHITE TIGERS ON EXHIBIT 55* = Zoo has very active advertising campaign with White Tigers

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White Tiger (Panthera tigris) is a tiger with a genetic condition that nearly eliminates pigment in thenormally orange fur although they still have dark stripes. This occurs when a tiger inherits two copiesof the recessive gene for the paler coloration: pink nose, grey-mottled skin, ice-blue eyes, and whiteto cream-colored fur with black, grey, or chocolate-colored stripes. (Another genetic condition alsomakes the stripes of the tiger very pale; white tigers of this type are called snow-white.) White tigersdo not constitute a separate subspecies of their own and can breed with orange ones, although all ofthe resulting offspring will be heterozygous for the recessive white gene, and their fur will be orange.The only exception would be if the orange parent was itself already a heterozygous tiger, whichwould give each cub a 50% chance of being either double-recessive white or heterozygous orange.This is not inbreeding [i2]

Compared to orange tigers without the white gene, whitetigers, at times, can be larger both at birth and at full adultsize.[1] This may have given them an advantage in the wilddespite their unusual coloration. Heterozygous orangetigers also tend to be larger than other orange tigers.Kailash Sankhala, the director of the New Delhi Zoo in the1960s, suggested that "one of the functions of the whitegene may have been to keep a size gene in the population,in case it's ever needed."

Dark-striped white individuals are well-documented in the Bengal Tiger subspecies (Pantheratigris tigris or P. t. bengalensis), may also have occurred in captive Siberian Tigers (Panthera tigrisaltaica), and may have been reported historically in several other subspecies. White pelage is mostclosely associated with the Bengal, or Indian subspecies. Currently, several hundred white tigers arein captivity worldwide with about 100 of them in India, and their numbers are on the increase. Themodern population includes both pure Bengals and hybrid Bengal–Siberians, but it is unclear whetherthe recessive gene for white came only from Bengals, or from any of the Siberian ancestors as well.

The unusual coloration of white tigers has made them popular in zoos and entertainment thatshowcases exotic animals. The magicians Siegfried & Roy are famous for having bred and trainedwhite tigers for their performances, as well as the AZA accredited Cincinnati Zoo, referring to themas "royal white tigers" from the white tiger's association with the Maharaja of Rewa, which isconsidered royalty.

It is a myth that white tigers did not thrive in the wild, where small groupshad bred white for generations. India once planned to reintroduce them tothe wild.[2] A.A. Dunbar Brander wrote in "Wild Animals In Central India"(1923): "White tigers occasionally occur. There is a regular breed of theseanimals in the neighborhood of Amarkantak at the junction of the Rewastate and the Mandla and Bilaspur districts. When I was last in Mandla in1919, a white tigress and two three parts grown white cubs existed. In1915 a male was trapped by the Rewa state and kept in confinement. Anexcellent description of this animal by Mr. Scott of the Indian police, has

been published in Vol. XXVII, No. 47, of the Bombay Natural History Society's journal."[3]

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However, most white tigers back in the early years bred in captivity, often by inbreeding parents andcubs to ensure the presence of the recessive gene.[4][2] This was done out of sure desperation thatthe white gene may had already been lost. Today, advancing many decades, the inbreeding practiceis all but gone. With today's scientific advancement such as DNA typing and testing and a massiveassortment of testing, zoo's are able to search for a white gene carrier who has no relation to itsintended breeding partner. Thus is why we so many health white tigers today.

Captive White Bengal Tiger Founders - The Captive Blood Line/History

“Mohan”

Mohan is the founding father of the white tigers of Rewa[5]. He was captured as a cub in 1951 byMaharaja Shri Martand Singh of Rewa, whose hunting party in Bandhavgarh found a tigress withfour 9-month-old cubs, one of which was white. All of them were shot except for the white cub. TheMaharaja of Rewa offered his guest, the Maharaja Ajit Singh of Jodhpur, the honor of shooting thewhite cub, but he declined. After shooting a white tiger in 1948 the Maharaja of Rewa had resolvedto capture one, as his father had done in 1915, at his next opportunity. Water was used to lure thethirsty cub into a cage, after he returned to a kill made by his mother, and once captured he washoused in the unused palace at Govindgarh in the erstwhile harem courtyard. The white cub mauleda man during the capture process and was clubbed on the head and knocked unconscious. He wasn'tnecessarily expected to wake up and this was his second brush with death. The Maharaja named himMohan, which roughly translates as "Enchanter", one of the many forms of the Hindu deity Krishna.The white tiger the previous Maharaja had kept in captivity from 1915 to 1920 was also a male,unusually large like most white tigers (Mohan was no exception in this regard), and was known tohave a white male sibling that continued to live in the wild. After it's death in 1920 it was mountedand presented to the Emperor King George V, as a token of loyalty.[2] This specimen is now in theBritish Museum, although it was not the first white tiger to reach England: in 1820, London's ExeterChange menagerie had a white tiger which was examined by the famous French anatomist GeorgesCuvier, who described it in his "Animal Kingdom" as having faint stripes only visible from certainangles of refraction. In 1960 there was a mounted white tiger, with faint reddish brown stripes, in thethrone room of the Maharaja of Rewa. In 1953, Mohan was bred[6] to a normal-colored wild tigresscalled Begum ("royal consort"), which produced two male orange cubs on September 7. In 1955 theyhad a litter of two males and two females on April 10 (which included a male named Sampson anda female named Radha).

On July 10, 1956 they again had a litter of two males and two females, which included a male namedSultan who went to Ahmedabad Zoo, and a female named Vindhya who went to Delhi Zoo and wasbred to an unrelated male named Suraj.[7] These early breeding experiments failed to yield a singlewhite cub.[2] Fearing that the white gene was lost another maharaja, a cousin of the Maharaja ofRewa, recounted, "Rewa was frustrated. I told him the answer-- incest of course!"[8] Out of puredesperation Mohan was then bred to his daughter Radha (who carried the white gene inherited fromhim) and they produced a number of white cubs. The initial litter of four cubs-- a male named Raja;three females named Rani, Mohini, and Sukishi-- were the first white tigers born in captivity, onOctober 30, 1958.[9][2] Raja and Rani went to the New Delhi Zoo, and Mohini was bought by theGerman-American billionaire John Kluge[10] for $10,000, for the Smithsonian National ZoologicalPark, and presented to President Eisenhower as a gift to the children of America, in 1960 [i3]. The

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white gene was saved.

Sukeshi remained at Govindgarh Palace, in the harem courtyard where she was born, as a mate forMohan. The Government of India made a deal with the Maharaja, under the terms of which Raja andRani would go to the New Delhi Zoo[11][12] for free. In exchange the Maharaja's white tigerbreeding would be subsidized and he would receive a share of their cubs. He wanted Rs 100,000 forthem.

Technically Sukeshi was also the property of the New Delhi Zoo, and in a sense India hadnationalized the captive white tigers of Rewa. The Parliament of India used to hear reports on theprogress of the white tigers, and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and U Nu of Burma participated inpublic christening ceremonies for white cubs at New Delhi Zoo. President Tito of Yugoslavia visitedNew Delhi Zoo and asked for white tigers for Belgrade Zoo, but was refused[13] . A white tigernamed Dalip from New Delhi Zoo represented India in two international expositions in Budapest andOsaka. The government of West Bengal bought two white males, named Niladari and Himadri, fromthe Maharaja for the Alipore Zoological Gardens (Calcutta Zoo), and an orange female named

Malini, from the same litter of three born in 1960, accompanied them there. The Alipore Zoo inKolkata, recovered the purchase price of the white tigers within six months by charging extra to seethem. Calcutta Zoo had a fine specimen of a white tiger in 1920. Six zoos acquired white tigers fromthe Maharaja of Rewa including the Bristol Zoo in England (a brother and sister pair named Champakand Chameli on June 22, 1963)[14][2] and the Crandon Park Zoo (which closed around 1983, andmoved out of Crandon Park to the site of the Miami MetroZoo) in Miami acquired a white tigress

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in 1968. Bristol Zoo's pair, born in 1962, came from another litter of four, all white, two females andtwo males.

By 1966 the Bombay Zoo had a white tigress named Lakshmi, born in 1964, from the Maharaja. TheCalcutta Zoo sold a white tigress named Sefali to Gauhati Zoo and sent a second white tiger thereon loan. By 1976 the Lucknow Zoo also had a white tiger which was a gift from New Delhi Zoo. Awhite tigress named Nandni, who was born in New Delhi Zoo in 1971, went to Hyderabad Zoo.[7]Zoos with white tigers constituted a most exclusive club and the white tigers themselves representeda single extended family.

The Maharaja was negotiating the sale of a white male, named Virat, as late as 1976, when he diedof enteritis. Virat was a son of Mohan and Sukeshi and the maharaja put him on the market afterattempting to breed him to Sukeshi,[2] which would have raised the inbreeding coefficient. Indiaimposed an export ban on white tigers in 1960,[15][16][17][18] , in an effort to preserve a monopoly,probably because Anglo-Indian naturalist Edward Pritchard Gee recommended that GovindgarhPalace, and it's white tiger inhabitants, be made a "national trust", whichdidn't happen. After the export ban was imposed the Maharaja threatenedto release all of his white tigers into the Rewa forest, and so he was givendispensation to sell two more pairs abroad, to offset his costs[19]. Mohiniwas only allowed to leave India because US President Dwight D.Eisenhower intervened personally with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru,to ask for the release of the United States government's white tiger. Awhite sister of Mohini's was brought to New Delhi the year before to showthe President, who was no stranger to white tigers. Circus owner ClydeBeatty also bought a white tiger from the Maharaja in 1960, for $10,000in a deal facilitated by the Smithsonian National Zoological Park directorT.H. Reed, which had to be cancelled because of the export ban[20], whichmade Mohini even more valuable.

She was estimated to be worth $28,000. Dr. Reed had traveled to India to escort Mohini toWashington. Years later the Bristol Zoo needed a new breeding male and traded a white female toNew Delhi Zoo for a white tiger named Roop, who had been named by U Nu, the Prime Minister ofBurma.[2] 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 NewDelhi. Begum went to live at Ahmedabad Zoo and was bred to her son Sultan. They produced twelvecubs in four litters between 1958 and 1961.[7] Bristol Zoo later transferred two male white tigers toDudley Zoo.

In 1951 the Maharaja placed ads in The New York Times and The Times of London, and wrote toGerald Iles, the director of the Belle Vue Zoo in Manchester[21], and probably others, offering tosell his captured white tiger cub. He wanted the princely sum of $28,000 for Mohan. The Maharajawas prevented by law from converting rupees into American dollars, and wanted the money to buya speed boat.[22][23][24]Mohan was featured in the National Geographic documentary "Great ZoosOf The World" in 1970. A photograph of his stuffed head, in a display case in the private museumof the Maharaja of Rewa in Govindgarh Lake Palace, appears in the National Geographic book "TheYear Of The Tiger."[25]

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Mohan died in 1970, aged almost 20, and was laid to rest with full Hindu rites as the palace staffobserved official mourning. He was the last recorded white tiger born in the wild. The last white tigerseen in the wild was shot in 1958.[2] The Maharaja of Rewa turned Mohan's native forest into theBandhavgarh National Park, because he couldn't control the poaching.

Today Bandhavgarh has the largest tiger population of any national park in India. Visitors can stayat the White Tiger Lodge, which is the local version of Tiger Tops in Royal Chitwan in Nepal.Pushpraj Singh, the reigning Maharaja of Rewa, is asking students to sign a petition to ask thePresident of India to return at least two white tigers to Govindgarh Lake Palace, as a touristattraction.[26] This would not have happened if not for the famous white tigers. The starting placeof the white tigers is now home to the largest population of wild tigers in India.

“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 December 5, 1960, and went to live at the Lion House,in the National Zoo, in Rock Creek Park.[27][28][29] 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 waseggshell white instead of the normal rufous orange. Exotic coloring and magnificent physique madeher 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."[10] White tigers can be larger andheavier than regular orange tigers. The average length of a white tiger at birth is 53 cm, comparedto 50 cm for a normal orange cub. Shoulder height is 17 cm (normal 12 cm), weight 1.37 kg (normal1.25 kg). Dalip and Krishna, two white tigers at New Delhi Zoo, weighed 139 kg and 120 kgrespectively, at two years of age. Ram and Jim, two normal colored tigers at the same zoo, weighed106 kg and 119 kg, at the same age. Raja, the white tiger, had a shoulder height of 100 cm, at tenyears 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 thewhite race", who carried the white gene as a recessive (both were fathered by Mohan), were higherat the shoulder than average, measuring 87 and 88 cm, compared to a normal orange tigress namedAsharfi, who measured 82 cm at the shoulder.[2] President Eisenhower was also given a rare PygmyHippopotamus (Choeropsis liberiensis), a male named Totota (see also Billy (pygmy hippo)), byWilliam Tubman, President of Liberia, in 1960, and a 14 month old baby male African elephant(Loxodonta africana), named Zimbo in 1959 by the director of the Vincennes Zoo in Paris, on behalfof the French community.

After arriving in the United States, Mohini spent 1 night in the Bronx Zoo[30], and was thenexhibited for three days in the Philadelphia Zoo[31][32], before traveling on to Washington.[10]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 morewhite tigers were being allowed out of India, so Mohini was mated to Sampson, and half brother,who was sent from Ahmedabad Zoo in 1963.[33] (It seems probable that financial considerations mayhave also precluded Washington from acquiring a second white tiger as a mate for Mohini.)

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After Sampson's death in 1966, at age 11 of kidney failure, Mohini was bred to Ramana, who wasthen the only male white gene carrier available. This resulted in the birth of a white daughter namedRewati on April 13, 1969[34] and a white son named Moni on Feb. 8, 1970. Moni was to haveundertaken a fund raising tour for Project Tiger. He was born in a litter of five, which included twowhite males and three orange females. One was stillborn and the mother crushed the others after threedays. 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 ina zoo, and an orange female named Ramani. Both died of feline distemper despite having beenvaccinated, at ten months age. Rajkumar had a particularly nasty disposition. All of Mohini's cubswere named by the Indian Ambassador.

The birth of Mohini's first litter was televised in a national special. Mohini's orange daughter Kesariwas born in 1966 with an orange female who was stillborn. After Moni died in 1971 the National Zootried to acquire an orange tiger named Ram from Trivandrum Zoo, in southern India, as a mate forMohini[35]. Ram was her first cousin, a grandson of Mohan, and there was a 50% chance that hecarried white genes. 25% of Ram's genes came from Mohan and 25% from Begum. 25% of Mohini'sgenes were from Begum and 75% from Mohan. Ram was a son of Vindhya and Suraj born on 23 IV1965 at New Delhi Zoo, the same Ram discussed earlier. Two sisters of Ram, born on 22 Feb. 1967,went to the Romanshorn Zoo in Switzerland. In 1973 an Indochinese Tiger (Panthera tigris corbetti)named Poona, who was born at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle in 1962, was sent to Washingtonfrom the Brookfield Zoo and bred to Mohini[36] and Kesari.[37] (Poona would have been regardedas a Bengal tiger for the first two years of his life because the Indo-Chinese subspecies was notrecognized until 1968.) Mohini did not conceive.

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Kesari produced six orange cubs, an extraordinary number, especially for a first litter, but only onesurvived, (which is common in large litters in tigers[i4] ) the female named Marvina.

Kesari handed Marvina over to her keepers. Marvina was mistaken for male, and named Marvinwhich was changed to Marvina when it was discovered that he was a she. Washington Zoo keeperArt Cooper, who hand reared Marvina, observed that white tigers were the most obstinate cats in thezoo, and said that Marvina had a typical white tiger personality.[38] (Poona also fathered litters bytwo other tigresses in Brookfield.) In 1974 Marvina, Ramana, and Kesari were sent to the CincinnatiZoo and Botanical Garden, and Rewati and Mohini went to the Brookfield Zoo, to be boarded duringrenovations in Washington, until 1976. On June 20, 1974 while at the Cincinnati Zoo Ramana andKesari 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 theNational Zoo said that she was well aware of the white gene and specifically told Cincinnati not tobreed from any of these tigers-Ramana, Kesari, or Marvina. Cincinnati countered that althoughRamana and Kesari had failed to breed in Washington they did so almost as soon as they arrived inCincinnati.[39]

As a fringe benefit of inbreeding the four cubs were pure-Bengal tigers, and they were the lastregistered Bengal tigers born in the United States. Ramana died in 1974 of a kidney infection andbecame a father for the last time posthumously. A white half sister of Mohini's bred from Mohan andhis white daughter Sukishi born on March 26, 1966, named Gomti[7] and later renamed Princess,lived in the Crandon Park Zoo in Miami for about a year before she died of a viral infection. Shearrived in Miami on January 13, 1968. Miami mayor Chuck Hall met the 22-month-old 350 lbs. white tigress at the airport and rode withher to the zoo. He wanted to call her Maya, the name suggested by the Maharaja, which translatesas Princess. Ralph S. Scott, who paid $35,000 for her and gave her to the Zoological Society ofFlorida, preferred the name Princess.[41][42] It was Ralph S. Scott, a famous big game hunter, whosuggested to John W. Kluge that he buy a white tiger for the children of America. He had seen thewhite tigers in Govindgarh Palace while tiger hunting in India.[10] The government of India wantedPrincess 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 fromIndia in 1967. He was a son of Raja and Rani, born in New Delhi, and sold by the Maharaja of Rewa.

Mohini died in 1979.[43] The skins and skulls of Mohini and Moni are in the Smithsonian, but arenot on display. An orange brother of Mohini's named Ramesh lived in the Mnagerie du Jardin desPlantes (Paris Zoo), and was bred to an unrelated tigress, but none of the offspring survived toreproduce.

Ramesh was born in Govindgarh Palace and had an orange female littermate, named Ratna who wentto New Delhi Zoo, had a white male littermate named Ramu.[7] They were the fourth and last litterof Mohan and Radha. Ratna was paired with a wild caught male named Jim, at New Delhi Zoo, andproduced three litters. Each cub would have had a 50% chance of inheriting the white gene fromRatna. Jim was captured in the Rewa forest, so they thought there was a chance he carried whitegenes. He had been somebody's pet, but after he ate a cat he was given to New Delhi Zoo. Jim usedto appear leaping into his pond, at New Delhi Zoo, in the opening of one of Gerald Durrell's TV

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shows. E.P. Gee mentioned, in his book "The Wildlife Of India", that Bristol Zoo wanted to acquireone of the cubs of Mohan and Begum, as a mate for one of its white tigers, Champak or Chameli, tolessen the degree of inbreeding, as the US National Zoo had done through the acquisition ofSampson. 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. The phenomenon ofspontaneous ovulation in a tiger was first observed by Devra Kleiman, in one of the white tigressesat the National Zoo, which meant that it was possible to breed tigers by artificial insemination.

“Tony”

Tony, born in July of 1972 in the Circus Winter Quarters of the Cole Bros. Circus (the Terrell Jacobsfarm) in Peru, Indiana, was the founder of many American white tiger lines, especially those used incircuses.[44] His grandfather was a registered Siberian tiger, named Kubla, who was born at theComo Park, Zoo, and Conservatory in Saint Paul, Minnesota.[45][46] Kubla's parents were born inthe wild. He was bred to a Bengal tigress named Susie, from a west coast zoo, at the Great PlainsZoo in Sioux Falls in South Dakota. Susie was once owned by Clyde Beatty. Two of their cubs(Rajah and Sheba II) were bred together, by Baron Julius Von Uhl, who lived in Peru, Indiana. JuliusVon Uhl was born in Budapest and came to America in 1956 from Hungary after the revolution.

One of the results of his tiger breeding was Tony, who therefore carried mixed blood[47] and wasresponsible for introducing Siberian genes into previously pure Bengal line of white tigers in NorthAmerica. He may also be the source of a gene for stripelessness. Tigers of mixed or unknownancestry are called generics, by zoo people. 97% of tiger genomes are in private hands.[48] Kublawas also bred to an Amur tigress named Katrina, who was born at the Rotterdam Zoo, and passedthrough the hands of two American zoos before joining Kubla and Susie at the AZA accredited GreatPlains Zoo (see International Tiger Studbook). Kubla and Katrina have living pure-Amur descendantswhich may include a line of white tigers, that are claimed as pure-Amurs, which originated out ofCenter Hill, Florida. These white tigers are not registered Amur tigers. A tiger trainer named AlanGold owned a pair of Amur tigers which once produced a white cub.

Worlds longest living tiger is a White Tiger ?

In 1972 there were four white tigers in the United States: Mohini and herdaughter Rewati in Washington D.C., Tony, and his first cousin namedBagheera,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 alsobrothers to Tony's parents.[49] Sheba III lived to be 26, an astonishing age for a tiger. (This may bethe 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 havebeen white gene carriers, since they could have inherited the gene from their mother, and if both

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parents were heterozygotes 66%, or two out of three, of their orange cubs are likely to have beencarriers. 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.[49]

Saber was never observed trying to mate, so perhaps Ural, also called Genghis, did sire one or moreof Sheba III's white cubs, which would have been three quarters Siberian had this been the case. Itis possible for tigers from the same litter to have different fathers. It's also possible that any or allthree tigers-Ural, Prince, and Saber, carried the white gene. Tony was purchased by John F. CuneoJr., owner of the Hawthorn Circus Corp. of Grayslake, Illinois[51][52] , in February 1975 for$20,000 in Detroit. Tony's parents, Raja and Sheba, produced two more white cubs at the BaltimoreCounty Fair on June 27, 1976.[53] The cubs were a white male, named "Baltimore County Fair", awhite female named "Snowball", and an orange male.[54] Snowball's name was later changed to"Maharani", and all three cubs were sold to the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus inWashington D.C.. Maharani died in 1984. Baron Julius Von Uhl had another three white cubs bornbetween June 18 and 19, 1977 at Kingdom's 3 (formerly Lion Country Safari) at Stockbridge,Georgia off I-75 south of Atlanta.[55] Two lived only a short time. The other, named Scarlett O'Hara,died at the AZA accredited Atlanta Zoo on Jan. 30, 1978 of cardiac arrest while undergoing surgery.She was still owned by Julius Von Uhl at the time.[56][57] Tony was sent on breeding loan to theAZA accredited 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, resultingin a litter of four white and one orange cub June 27, 1976, the same day that eight year old Sheba hadher white cubs in Baltimore, Maryland. It is an astounding coincidence that both tigresses gave birthto white cubs on the exact same day. On that one day America's white tiger population nearly doubledfrom 8 to 14. Kesari's 1976 litter represented a mixture of the two unrelated strains.

The Cincinnati Zoo retained a brother and sister pair from the litter, named Bhim and Sumita, andtheir orange sister Kamala. Two white males returned to the Hawthorn Circus with Tony as JohnCuneo's share from the breeding loan. Tony, Bagheera, and Frosty lived for years with a troop ofHawthorn Circus tigers stationed at Marineland and Game Farm, in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada.Because of selective breeding only a few of the oldest white tigers in the Hawthorn Circus today arecross eyed. Bhim and Sumita became the world record parents of white cubs. In 1976 there were 39white tigers-7 in New Delhi, 7 in Kolkata, one in Guwahati, one in Lucknow, one in Hyderabad, 8in Bristol, Cincinnati Zoo had 2, Washington had 5, John Cuneo had 5, and Julius Von Uhl had 2. TheMaharaja of Rewa retired from the white tiger business in 1976. He later abdicated in favor of his sonso that he could run for the family seat in parliament and became an MP. There is a white tiger cubon the shield of the coat of arms of the Maharajas of Rewa.

White gene is saved, and controlled unrelated breeding established.

Over 70 white tigers have been born at the AZA accredited Cincinnati Zoo. The Cincinnati Zoo soldwhite tigers[58] for $60,000 each to other zoo’s after having establised a new unrelated blood lineof white tigers. Siegfried & Roy bought a litter of three white cubs from the Cincinnati Zoo, whichwere offspring of Bhim and Sumita, for around $125,000. Prior to 1974 the Cincinnati Zoo wantedto acquire a white tiger, but no zoo would sell at any price. By the 1980s the Cincinnati Zoo was theworld's leading purveyor of white tigers. After 1976 at least one more white tiger born at theCincinnati Zoo was cross eyed, a cub from Bhim and Sumita's first litter. Crossed eyes may bereduced or eliminated through selective breeding, as it has been in Siamese cats

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The AZA accredited Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Nebraska bought Tony's parents and orange sisterObie (born in 1975) in 1978[59], and bred more white tigers. Kesari also went to live at Omaha Zoo,but didn't have any more cubs. Some of Tony's white siblings born in Omaha proved to be sterile.Obie was paired with Ranjit from the AZA accredited 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 ofRanjit and Obie, born at the Omaha Zoo, fathered the first test tube tigers[60], and then became thefirst white tiger in Australia when he was sent to the Taronga Zoo in Sydney. His brother, PanghurBan, was the National Zoo's last white tiger.[61] A white tiger named Rajiv, a son of Bhim, becamethe first white tiger in Africa, when he was sent to Pretoria Zoo in exchange for a king cheetah.[62]In 1983 Rewati was paired with Ika, from Kesari's 1976 litter, at the Columbus Zoo[63]. Ika killedRewati in the act of mating[64]. Ika was then mated with a white tigress named Taj, who was a granddaughter of his brothers Ranjit and Bhim, and fathered white cubs in Columbus. Ika and Taj had adaughter named Lilly, who appeared on Late Night with David Letterman with Jack Hanna in 1986,as her mother Taj had done years earlier. Ika was also bred to Taj's orange mother Dolly, a daughterof Bhim and an unrelated orange tigress named Kimanthi, in Columbus. Taj's father, Duke, was a sonof Ranjit from an outcross to an unrelated orange tigress. Isson, a white grandson of Kesari, was alsodispatched to Columbus on breeding loan from the Hawthorn Circus, of Grayslake, Illinois, whicheventually had 80 white tigers. In1984 five white tiger cubs were stolen from the Hawthorn Circusin Portland, Oregon, and two died. The tigers were touring with the Ringling Bros. Barnum & BaileyCircus. The culprit was a veterinarian who was sentenced to one year in prison and six months in ahalfway house.[65]

In 1974 a white cub was born in the AZA accredited Racine Zoological Gardens in Wisconsin.. Thefather, named Bucky, killed the white cub. The mother, named Bonnie, was later bred with an orangelittermate of Tony named "Chequila", who belonged to James Witchey of Ravenna, Ohio, who boughthim from Dick Hartman of South Lebanon, Ohio, when he was four or five years of age. Chequilaproved to be a white gene carrier and fathered at least one white cub in the Racine Zoo in 1980. Itis not known whether Bucky, who came from the Fort Wayne Children's Zoo in Indiana, and hisdaughter Bonnie, were related to any of the established strains of white tigers. By 1987 10% of NorthAmerican zoo tigers were white.

“Orissa” White Tigers

Three white tigers were also born in the Nandan Kanan Zoo (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 ancestorswould have carried the recessive white gene, and it showed up when Deepak was mated to hisdaughter. Deepak's sister also turned out to be a white gene carrier. These white tigers are thereforereferred to as the Orissa strain, as opposed to the Rewa strain, of white tigers founded by Mohan[66].

When the surprise birth of three white cubs occurred there was a white tigress already living at thezoo, named Diana, from New Delhi Zoo. One of the three was later bred to her creating anotherblend 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. TheCincinnati Zoo acquired two female white tigers from the Nandan Kanan Zoo, in the hopes of

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establishing a line of pure-Bengal white tigers in America, but they never got a male, and didn'treceive authorization from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA)'s Species Survival Plan(SSP) , (which has no such program for the Bengal tiger species), to breed them. The AZA hasrecommended that white tigers be "bred to extinction", which is to say, not bred at all and allowedto die out, because “they consume space and resources needed for endangered orangetigers”.[68][69][70][71][72][73]. In these such statements it was clear that the AZA desires acontrolled monopoly on the tiger conservation issues. But the white tiger has proven to be a “standalone” single producer of conservation dollars. This is why so many AZA zoo’s support the whitetigers and have them on exhibit. Out of the over 200+ AZA zoos in the United States, over 50 ofthem currently actively exhibit the white tiger(s), and many of those use the white tiger as theirflagship animal in marketing. Further, in almost all of the AZA zoos that have any species of tigeron exhibit, it was found that most of those zoos promote the white tiger through their gift shops, andother merchandise revenue generating products.

A very good example of this is at the Minnesota Zoo where Dr. Ron Tilson, (Ret),was a high ranking tiger expert within the AZA, and a very avidspeaker against the white tiger. But his own zoos sees things a littledifferently, and their gift shops throughout the park carry a large assortmentof white tiger souvenir. Showing that once again, the white tiger is a bigsupporting-vehicle in generating revenue that helps support that zoo’sconservation efforts.

It has been suggested that as few as 1 in 10,000 tigers in the wild was white.Although many AZA member zoos still keep them, as an attraction to

generate revenue, almost none breed them. Sarah Christie, the coordinator of Conservation Programsat London Zoo, has said that she would not be adverse to using a white tiger in a zoo breedingprogram provided it was purebred.

She said that it's a naturally occurring gene and it shouldn't be selected for or against.[74]Zoobreeding programs for tigers may be of doubtful value to conservation in any case. K.S. Sankhalaonce asked Sally Walker of the Zoo Outreach Organization, of Tamil Nadu, India, "Why doforeigners hate our white tigers so much?" The Zoo Outreach Organization used to publish studbooksfor white tigers, which were compiled by A.K. Roychoudhury of the Bose Institute in Calcutta, andsubsidized by the Humane Society of India. The Columbus Zoo had also hoped to breed pure-Bengalwhite tigers, but were unable to obtain a white registered Bengal mate for Rewati from India.[75]

There were also surprise births of white tigers in the Asian Circus, in India, to parents not knownto have been white gene carriers, or heterozygotes, and not known to have any relationship to anyother white tiger strains. There was a white cub born at Mysore Zoo from orange parents descendedfrom Deepak's sister. On August 29, 1979 a white tigress named Seema was dispatched to KanpurZoo to be bred to Badal, a tiger who was a fourth generation descendant of Mohan and Begum. Thepair did not breed so it was decided to pair Seema with one of two wild caught, notorious man eaters,either Sheru or Titu, from the Jim Corbett National Park. Seema and Sheru produced a white cub,and for a while it was thought there might be white genes in Corbett's population of tigers, but thecub didn't stay white.[76][77][78]

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There have been other cases of white tiger, white lion, and white panther cubs being born, and thenchanging to normal color. White tigers which were a mixture of the Rewa and Orissa strains, bornat the Nandan Kanan Zoo, were non inbred. A white tiger from out of the Orissa strain found it's wayto the Western Plains Zoo in Australia. Australia's Dreamworld, on the Gold Coast, wanted to breedthis tiger to one of their white tigers from the United States, acquired from Croatian-American tigertrainer Josip Marcan, who was a trainer with the Hawthorn Circus and the Clyde Beatty Cole Bros.Circus, and had also worked as a veterinarian at the Frankfurt Zoo. The Western Plains Zoo rejectedthe idea. Stripeless (Snow White) Tigers One of these nearly stripeless tiger is on display at The Mirage in Las Vegas, Nevada An additionalgenetic condition can remove most of the striping of a white tiger, making the animal almost purewhite. One such specimen was exhibited at Exeter Change in England in 1820 and described byGeorges Cuvier as "A white variety of Tiger is sometimes seen, with the stripes very opaque, and notto be observed except in certain angles of light."[79]. Naturalist Richard Lydekker said that, "a whitetiger, in which the fur was of a creamy tint, with the usual stripes faintlyvisible in certain parts, was exhibited at the old menagerie at ExeterChange about the year 1820."[80] Hamilton Smith said, "A whollywhite tiger, with the stripe-pattern visible only under reflected light,like the pattern of a white tabby cat, was exhibited in the ExeterChange Menagerie in 1820.", and John George Wood stated that, "acreamy white, with the ordinary tigerine stripes so faintly marked thatthey were only visible in certain lights." Edwin Henry Landseer alsodrew this tigress in 1824.

It is believed the modern strain of snow white tigers came from of Bhim and Sumita at Cincinnati zoo.The gene involved possibly came from the Siberian tiger, via their part-Siberian ancestor Tony.Continued breeding appears to have caused a recessive gene for stripelessness to show up. About onefourth of Bhim and Sumita's offspring were stripeless. Their striped white offspring, which have beensold 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 captivewhite tigers. As a result, stripeless whites have occurred in zoos as far afield as the Czech Republic,Spain and Mexico. Stage magicians Siegfried & Roy were the first to attempt to breed selectively forstripelessness; 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 tigercalled Apollo.[81]

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

White Tiger and White Stripless Tiger

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Genetics & albinism The presence of stripes indicates it is not a true albino. Contrary to popular belief, white tigers arenot albinos; true albino tigers would have no stripes. The stripeless white tigers known today onlyhave very pale stripes. Part of the confusion is due to the misidentification of the so-called chinchillagene (for white) as an allele of the albino series (publications prior to the 1980s refer to it as an albinogene). The mutation is recessive to normal color, which means that two orange tigers carrying themutant gene may produce white offspring, and white tigers bred together will produce only whitecubs.

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 affectingthe distance between the dark bands of color on agouti hairs.[82] An orange tiger who inherits twocopies of this wide-band gene becomes a golden tabby; a white who inherits two copies becomesalmost or completely stripeless. As early as 1907, naturalist Richard Lydeker doubted the existenceof albino tigers.[83] However, we do have a report of true albinism: in 1922, two pink-eyed albinoyoung were shot along with their mother at Mica Camp, Tisri, in the Cooch Behar district, accordingto 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.

Cross-eyed, is not a result of inbreeding.

The only pure-Bengal white tiger reported to be cross eyed was Mohini'sdaughter Rewati. Strabismus is directly linked to the white gene and is nota separate consequence of inbreeding.[85][86][87]

The orange littermates of white tigers are not prone to strabismus. Siamesecats and albinos of every species which has been studied all exhibit the samevisual pathway abnormality found in white tigers. Siamese cats are alsosometimes cross eyed, as are some albino ferrets. The visual pathwayabnormality was first documented in white tigers in the brain of Moni, afterhe died, although his eyes were in normal alignment. There is a disruption

in the optic chiasm. The examination of Moni's brain suggested the disruption may less severe inwhite tigers than it is in Siamese cats. Because of the visual pathway abnormality, by which some ofthe optic nerves are routed to the wrong side of the brain, white tigers have a problem with spatialorientation, and bump into things, until they learn to compensate. Some compensate by crossing theireyes. When the neurons pass from the retina to the brain and reach the optic chiasma some cross andsome do not, so that visual images are projected to the wrong hemisphere of the brain.

White tigers, Siamese cats, and Himalayan rabbits have enzymes in their fur which react totemperature causing them to grow darker in cold.[90] They produce a mutated form of tyrosinase,an enzyme used in the production of melanin, which only functions at certain temperatures. This iswhy Siamese cats and Himalayan rabbits are darker on their faces, ears, legs, and tails, where the coldpenetrates more easily. K.S. Sankhala, who was director of the New Delhi Zoo in the 1960s,observed that white tigers were always whiter in Rewa, even when they were born in New Delhi andreturned there. "In spite of living in a dusty courtyard they were always snow white."[2] A weakenedimmune system is directly linked to reduced pigmentation in white tigers. White tigers react strangely

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to anesthesia[91] due to their inability to produce normal tyrosinase, a trait shared with albinos,according to zoo veterinarian David Taylor. He was treating a pair of white tigers from the CincinnatiZoo at Fritz Wurm's safari park in Stukenbrock, Germany, for salmonella.[92]

Mohini was checked for Chdiak-Higashi syndrome in 1960, but the results were inconclusive.[93][94]This condition is similar to albino mutations and causes bluish lightening of the fur color, crossedeyes, and prolonged bleeding after surgery or in the event of injury, the blood is slow to coagulate,in domestic cats. There has never been a case of a white tiger having Chédiak-Higashi syndrome.There has been a single case of a white tiger having central retinal degeneration, which could berelated to reduced pigmentation in the eye, reported from the AZA accredited Milwaukee CountyZoo.[95][96] The white tiger was a male on loan from the Cincinnati Zoo.

Inbreeding depression

Because of the extreme rarity of the white tiger allele in the wild[2], the breeding pool was limitedto the small number of white tigers in captivity. According to Kailash Sankhala the last white tigerever seen in the wild was shot in 1958. Some animal rights activists have called for a halt to thebreeding of white tigers altogether. It is probably due to the rarity and demand for white tigers thatRewati 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 strainof white Amur tigers. Rewati also lived at the AZA accredited Bronx Zoo for several years and theymay have attempted to breed her. She appeared on the covers of the April 1970 National Geographicand the June 22, 1973 issue of Science.

It has been possible to expand the white gene pool by outcrossing white tigers with unrelated orangetigers and then using the cubs to produce more white tigers. Most zoo's are now doing this.

Ranjit, Bharat, Priya, and Bhim were all outcrossed; in some instances to more than one tiger. Bharatwas bred to an unrelated orange tiger named Jack, from AZA accredited San Francisco Zoo, and hadan orange daughter named Kanchana.[98] Bharat and Priya were also bred with an unrelated orangetiger from the AZA accredited Knoxville Zoo, and Ranjit was bred to this tiger's sister, also fromKnoxville Zoo. Bhim fathered several litters by an unrelated orange tigress named Kimanthi, at theAZA accredited Cincinnati Zoo. Ranjit had several mates at the AZA accredited Omaha Zoo.[99] Thelast descendants of Bristol Zoo's white tigers were a group of orange tigers from outcrosses, whichwere bought by a Pakistani senator and shipped to Pakistan. Rajiv, Pretoria Zoo's white tiger, whowas born in the Cincinnati Zoo and became the first white tiger in Africa when he was traded for aking 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 resuminginbreeding further down the line.

In recent years a white tigress at the Buenos Aires Zoo has produced several litters of white cubs,including some which are stripeless, and a litter of 6 in 2004.[107][108] A stripeless white tigressgave birth to four stripeless white, and one orange cub, at the zoo in Guadalajara, Mexico, which hasan association with Siegfried & Roy, in 2007. The fact that the litter included one orange cub showsthat the father, Nino, is orange. This was the sixth litter born at the zoo.[109][110]

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The new Delhi Zoo loaned out white tigers to various zoos in India for outcrossing, and thegovernment had to impose a whip to force zoos to return either the white tigers or their orangeoffspring.

Siegfried & Roy did at least one outcross.[116] In the mid 1980s they offered to collaborate withthe Indian government in the creation of a healthier strain of white tigers. The Indian governmentwas reportedly studying the offer. At one point the Cincinnati Zoo was the only zoo in the worldbreeding them.[117] The New Delhi Zoo decided to try again reasoning that if Cleopatra could beborn healthy and normal as the product of three generations of brother to sister unions then so mightwhite tigers. (Cleopatra's parents were not brother and sister.) Mice have been bred brother to sisterfor 150 generations without ill effect, and are therefore 99.999% genetically identical.

Hybrid white tigers appear to be healthier than white subspecific purebredsand an analogy can be made with purebred vs. mongrel dogs.[118]India iscommitted to keeping their white tigers purebred. In the mid 1980sSiegfried & Roy owned 10% of the world's white tigers. In the 1980sSiegfried & Roy were escorting two big, dark striped, white tiger cubs totheir new home at Phantasialand, in Bruhl, Germany, when the white tigersand their truck were briefly stolen in New York City, when the driverstopped for coffee. The white tigers made their debut in Germany at aceremony attended by the United States Ambassador. Siegfried & Roy havebred white tigers in collaboration with the Nashville Zoo and they appearedon Larry King with white tiger cubs born at the Nashville Zoo. Fritz Wurm'ssafari park in Germany bought a pair of white tigers from the Cincinnati Zoo, and Joan Collinsattended the opening of the golden domed white tiger pavilion, at the safari park in Stukenbrock,Germany.

Historical records - numerous white tigers in the wild. In Rewa hunters' diaries recorded 9 white tigers in the fifty years prior to 1960. The Journal of TheBombay Natural History Society reported 17 white tigers shot between 1907 and 1933. E.P. Geecollected accounts of 35 white tigers from the wild up to 1959, with still more uncounted from Assamwhere he had his tea plantation, although Assam with its humid jungles was considered a likelierhaunt for black tigers. Some white tigers in the wild had reddish stripes known as "red tigers". TheBoga-bagh, or "white tiger", Tea Estate in upper Assam, was named that after two white tigers wereshot there in the early 1900s. While the modern population descends from Rewan tigers, white tigersmay have been recorded as far afield as China and Korea[123], Nepal, Burma, the Malay Peninsula,Sumatra and Java. Historically, white tigers may have been reported in northern China, in thegeographic range of the Siberian tiger, and perhaps in the Indochinese, Sumatran and Javansubspecies, but not among South China, Caspian (Panthera tigris virgata) or Bali Tigers. Korean andManchurian tigers were previously recognized as separate subspecies (Panthera tigris coreensis andPanthera tigris longipilis or amurensis)[124][125], but they are now regarded part of the Amur tigersubspecies (Siberian) named for the Amur river. There were also blue tigers reported from southernChina, referred to as "blue devils" because they were notorious man-eaters. Arthur Locke writing in"The Tigers Of Trengganu" (1954) mentions white tigers, but it's unclear whether he meansspecifically in Trengganu, in the Malay Peninsula, or elsewhere in Asia, in which case there may be

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no record of white tigers ever existing in the Malay Peninsula.[126] The Malayan Tiger (Pantheratigris malayensis or Panthera tigris jacksoni) was only recognized as a subspecies separate from theIndochinese (Panthera tigris corbetti) in 2004, and the Indochinese as a subspecies separate from theBengal in 1968. White tigers were reported from Burma, now called Myanmar, but since theIrrawaddy River (Ayeyarwady since 1998) is the theoretical dividing line between the range of the

Bengal and Indochinese tiger, it is uncertain whether there were also white Indochinese tigers orwhite Malayan tigers.

In some regions, the animal forms part of local tradition. In China, it was revered as the god of theWest, Baihu. In South Korea, a white tiger will sometimes be represented on the taegeuk emblem onthe flag – the symbolising evil, opposite the green dragon for good. In Indian superstition, the whitetiger was the incarnation of a Hindu deity, and anyone who killed it would die within a year. Sumatranand Javan royalty claimed descent from white tigers, and the animals were regarded as thereincarnations of royalty. In Java the white tiger was associated with the vanished Hindu kingdomsand 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 Empire(1556–1605). A painting from 1590 of Akbar while hunting near Gwalior depicts four tigers, two ofwhich appear white. As many as 17 instances of white tigers were recorded in India between 1907and 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, UpperAssam, Bilaspur, Cooch Behar and Pune. Pollock (1900) reported white tigers from Burma and theJynteah hills of Meghalaya. In the 1920s and 30s, fifteen white tigers were killed in Bihar, and morewere shot in other regions.[127] On 22 January 1939, the Prime Minister of Nepal shot a white tigerat Barda camp in Terai, Nepal. The last observed wild white tiger was shot in 1958, and the mutationis considered extinct in the wild[2]. There have been rumors of white tigers in the wild in India sincethen, but none have been considered credible. It has been suggested from the casual way that JimCorbett makes reference to a white tigress, which he filmed with two orange cubs, in his "Man-eatersof Kumoan" (1946)[128] that white tigers were nothing out of the ordinary to him. Corbett's blackand white film footage is probably the only film in existence of a white tiger in the wild. It illustratesagain that white tigers survived and reproduced in the wild.

The film was used in a National Geographic docu-drama about Corbett's life. One theory of whitetigers holds that they were symptomatic of inbreeding as a consequence of over hunting and habitatloss, as tiger populations became isolated. In 1965 there was a chair upholstered with a white tigerskin in the "India collection" of Marjorie Merriweather Post, at her Hillwood estate in WashingtonD.C., which is now operated as a museum. A color photograph of this item appeared in the Nov. 5,1965 issue of Life magazine.[129]In the October 1975 issue of National Geographic there is aphotograph of the minister of defense for the United Arab Emirates with a stuffed white tiger in hisoffice.[130] The actor Cesar Romero owned a white tiger skin.

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Conclusion

The history of the white tiger is a remarkable one. And it is true that in thevery early years of captivity there was some inbreeding. But we mustremember that those were considered to be the standards of all zoo’s in the1950s - 1960s. That, coupled with the act of inbreeding, (which kept theprue species in tack) was done out of complete desperation to save thewhite gene from being lost forever. In today’s standards, inbreeding is athing of the past, and with the massive advancements in technology in the

zoo industry, outbreeding has been able to but the white tiger on the right gene path. This is why wesee so many healthy white tigers on exhibit today.

The world has known of 8 different species of tigers. Three of these species are extinct from theworld, never to be seen again, in zoo’s, museums or otherwise. The Balinese Tiger became extinctin 1937, Caspian Tiger became extinct in the 1950's, and the Javan Tiger slipped by usin 1970's. India did not want to see this happen to the white tiger. Even though the white tiger went extinct inthe wild 1958, the world will always have them in captivity, and because of that, India in now startingto re-introduce the white tiger back to the wild.[180]

Because of the on-powering presence and beauty of the white tiger, it will always be a leader as oneof the best tools zoo’s have in their conservation arsenal for generating revenue to fund suchexpensive undertakings in all aspects of conservation.

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Referencesi1 Blank Park Zoo - Zoo History - http://www.blankparkzoo.com/en/about_us/zoo_history.cfm i2 Zoo Outreach Organization - June 1989 - Studbook of White Tigers: Roychoudhuryi3 National Geographic - “Enchantress ! Rare White Tigress Comes to Washington” May 1961,Vol 119, No. 5i4 Five out of Six cubs die - Great Plains Zoo, North Dakota - 2009 http://www.greatplainszoo.org/Articles1. Mills, Stephen, Tiger, Firefly Publications, BBC Books 2004 pg. 133 2. Kailash Sankhala 1976 3. Brander, Dunbar A.A., Wild animals in central India, London: E. Arnold, 1923 4. Sunquist, Fiona, "The Secret Of The White Tiger" National Geographic World Dec. 2000 pg. 26 5. Van Nostrand, Mary L., "Mohan The Ghost Tiger Of Rewa", Zoonooz May 1984 pgs. 4-7 6. Alderton, David, Wild Cats Of The World, Blandford UK London 1993 pgs. 43-44 7. Thornton, I.W.B., K.K. Yeung & K.S. Sankhala. 1967. The genetics of white tigers in Rewa. J. Zool. 152: 127-35 8. Isaac, J., 1984 Tiger Tale. Geo 6 (August) 82-86 9 Stracey, P.D., Tigers, London: Baker, New York: Golden P., 1968 10. Reed, Theodore H. "Enchantess: Queen Of An Indian Palace Rare White Tigress Comes To Washington." NationalGeographic May 1961 11 Husain, Dawar, Breeding And Hand-Rearing Of White Tiger Cubs Panthera tigris At New Delhi Zoo, International ZooYearbook Vol. VI 1966 12. Sankhala, Kailash, Breeding Behavior Of The Tiger Panthera tigris In Rajasthan, International Zoo Yearbook Vol. VII1967 pg. 133 13. Desai, J.H., & Malhotra, A.K., "The White Tiger" New Delhi Publications, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting,Govt. of India, 1992 14. "White tigers at Bristol Zoo", The London Times August 17, 1963, pg. 8b. 15. Roth, T.W. "Rare White Tiger Of Rewa" Journal Of cat Genetics Vol. 1 April May June 1964 No. 3;

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