The Royal White Tiger - All About White Tigers

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
White Tiger Inventory - AZA Accredited Zoo’s 2011
budgets to obtain successes in this area.
The old saying of "No bucks,....no Buck
Zoo Name
State
Qty
Rogers..." still applies today. The
Montgomery Zoo
AL
1
bottom line is, that conservation and
Wildlife World Zoo
AZ
2
education cost. It cost greatly! So zoos
Colorado Oceans Journey
CO
2*
and parks depend on the "heavy hitters"
Brandywine Zoo
DE
2
like the White Tigers to bring people in
Busch Gardens
FL
7*
The Zoo
FL
1
the gates, not only to help fund these
Honolulu Zoo
HI
2
massive and
very important and
Topeka Zoological Park
KS
2
expensive programs, but to also spark
Alexandria Zoological Park
LA
2*
Audubon Zoo
LA
2*
the conservation enthusiasm in its
Baton Rouge Zoo
LA
1*
visitors. Just one example, the AZA
Franklin Park Zoo
MA
2
accredited Blank Park Zoo in Ohio
Henry Doorly Zoo
NE
3*
Riverside Zoo
NE
1
brought in a quest white tiger for just
Roosevelt Zoo
ND
1
one season, and the zoo's attendance
Cincinnati Zoo
OH
2*
increased 117%. [i1]
Erie Zoo
PA
1
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.
Philadelphia Zoo
Bramble Zoo
Nashville Zoo
Fort Worth Zoo
Houston Zoological Gardens
Houston’s Downtown Aquarium
Mill Mountain Zoo
Caldwell Zoo
Six Flags Discovery Kingdom
Abilene Zoo
Gladys Porter Zoo
PA
SD
TN
TX
TX
TX
VA
TX
CA
TX
TX
TOTAL ROYAL WHITE TIGERS ON EXHIBIT
* = Zoo has very active advertising campaign with White Tigers
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2*
1
2
3*
1
2*
2
2*
3*
1
5
55
White Tiger (Panthera tigris) is a tiger with a genetic condition that nearly eliminates pigment in the
normally orange fur although they still have dark stripes. This occurs when a tiger inherits two copies
of the recessive gene for the paler coloration: pink nose, grey-mottled skin, ice-blue eyes, and white
to cream-colored fur with black, grey, or chocolate-colored stripes. (Another genetic condition also
makes the stripes of the tiger very pale; white tigers of this type are called snow-white.) White tigers
do not constitute a separate subspecies of their own and can breed with orange ones, although all of
the 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, which
would 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, white
tigers, at times, can be larger both at birth and at full adult
size.[1] This may have given them an advantage in the wild
despite their unusual coloration. Heterozygous orange
tigers also tend to be larger than other orange tigers.
Kailash Sankhala, the director of the New Delhi Zoo in the
1960s, suggested that "one of the functions of the white
gene 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 (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. Currently, several hundred white tigers are
in captivity worldwide with about 100 of them in India, and their numbers are on the increase. The
modern population includes both pure Bengals and hybrid Bengal–Siberians, but it is unclear whether
the 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 that
showcases exotic animals. The magicians Siegfried & Roy are famous for having bred and trained
white tigers for their performances, as well as the AZA accredited Cincinnati Zoo, referring to them
as "royal white tigers" from the white tiger's association with the Maharaja of Rewa, which is
considered royalty.
It is a myth that white tigers did not thrive in the wild, where small groups
had bred white for generations. India once planned to reintroduce them to
the wild.[2] A.A. Dunbar Brander wrote in "Wild Animals In Central India"
(1923): "White tigers occasionally occur. There is a regular breed of these
animals in the neighborhood of Amarkantak at the junction of the Rewa
state and the Mandla and Bilaspur districts. When I was last in Mandla in
1919, a white tigress and two three parts grown white cubs existed. In
1915 a male was trapped by the Rewa state and kept in confinement. An
excellent 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 and
cubs to ensure the presence of the recessive gene.[4][2] This was done out of sure desperation that
the white gene may had already been lost. Today, advancing many decades, the inbreeding practice
is all but gone. With today's scientific advancement such as DNA typing and testing and a massive
assortment of testing, zoo's are able to search for a white gene carrier who has no relation to its
intended 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 by
Maharaja Shri Martand Singh of Rewa, whose hunting party in Bandhavgarh found a tigress with
four 9-month-old cubs, one of which was white. All of them were shot except for the white cub. The
Maharaja of Rewa offered his guest, the Maharaja Ajit Singh of Jodhpur, the honor of shooting the
white cub, but he declined. After shooting a white tiger in 1948 the Maharaja of Rewa had resolved
to capture one, as his father had done in 1915, at his next opportunity. Water was used to lure the
thirsty cub into a cage, after he returned to a kill made by his mother, and once captured he was
housed in the unused palace at Govindgarh in the erstwhile harem courtyard. The white cub mauled
a man during the capture process and was clubbed on the head and knocked unconscious. He wasn't
necessarily expected to wake up and this was his second brush with death. The Maharaja named him
Mohan, 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 to
have a white male sibling that continued to live in the wild. After it's death in 1920 it was mounted
and presented to the Emperor King George V, as a token of loyalty.[2] This specimen is now in the
British Museum, although it was not the first white tiger to reach England: in 1820, London's Exeter
Change menagerie had a white tiger which was examined by the famous French anatomist Georges
Cuvier, who described it in his "Animal Kingdom" as having faint stripes only visible from certain
angles of refraction. In 1960 there was a mounted white tiger, with faint reddish brown stripes, in the
throne room of the Maharaja of Rewa. In 1953, Mohan was bred[6] to a normal-colored wild tigress
called Begum ("royal consort"), which produced two male orange cubs on September 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).
On July 10, 1956 they again had a litter of two males and two females, 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.[7] These early breeding experiments failed to yield a single
white cub.[2] Fearing that the white gene was lost another maharaja, a cousin of the Maharaja of
Rewa, recounted, "Rewa was frustrated. I told him the answer-- incest of course!"[8] Out of pure
desperation Mohan was then bred to his daughter Radha (who carried the white gene inherited from
him) 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, on
October 30, 1958.[9][2] Raja and Rani went to the New Delhi Zoo, and Mohini was bought by the
German-American billionaire John Kluge[10] for $10,000, for the Smithsonian National Zoological
Park, and presented to President Eisenhower as a gift to the children of America, in 1960 [i3]. The
Page 3 of 22
white gene was saved.
Sukeshi remained at Govindgarh Palace, in the harem courtyard where she was born, as a mate for
Mohan. The Government of India made a deal with the Maharaja, under the terms of which Raja and
Rani would go to the New Delhi Zoo[11][12] 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.
Technically Sukeshi was also the property of the New Delhi Zoo, and in a sense India had
nationalized the captive white tigers of Rewa. The Parliament of India 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[13] . 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 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 in
Kolkata, 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)[14][2] and the Crandon Park Zoo (which closed around 1983, and
moved out of Crandon Park to the site of the Miami MetroZoo) in Miami acquired a white tigress
Page 4 of 22
in 1968. Bristol Zoo's pair, born in 1962, came from another litter of four, all white, two females and
two males.
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 the 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.[7]
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,[2] which would have raised the inbreeding coefficient. India
imposed 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 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[19]. Mohini
was 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. 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 the Smithsonian National Zoological Park director
T.H. Reed, which had to be cancelled because of the export ban[20], which
made Mohini even more valuable.
She was estimated to be worth $28,000. Dr. Reed had traveled 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.[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 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.[7] 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
Gerald Iles, the director of the Belle Vue Zoo in Manchester[21], 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.[22][23][24]Mohan was featured in the National Geographic documentary "Great Zoos
Of The World" in 1970. A photograph of his stuffed head, in a display case in the private museum
of the Maharaja of Rewa in Govindgarh Lake Palace, appears in the National Geographic book "The
Year Of The Tiger."[25]
Page 5 of 22
Mohan died in 1970, aged almost 20, and was laid to rest with full Hindu rites as the palace staff
observed official mourning. He was the last recorded white tiger born in the wild. The last white tiger
seen in the wild was shot in 1958.[2] The Maharaja of Rewa turned Mohan's native forest into the
Bandhavgarh National Park, because he couldn't control the poaching.
Today Bandhavgarh has the largest tiger population of any national park in India. Visitors can stay
at 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 the
President of India to return at least two white tigers to Govindgarh Lake Palace, as a tourist
attraction.[26] This would not have happened if not for the famous white tigers. The starting place
of 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 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."[10] White tigers can be 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.[2] President Eisenhower was also given a rare Pygmy
Hippopotamus (Choeropsis liberiensis), a male named Totota (see also Billy (pygmy hippo)), by
William 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 behalf
of the French community.
After arriving in the United States, Mohini spent 1 night in the Bronx Zoo[30], and was then
exhibited 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 more
white 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 may
have also precluded Washington from acquiring a second white tiger as a mate for Mohini.)
Page 6 of 22
After Sampson's death in 1966, at age 11 of kidney failure, Mohini was bred to 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[34] and a white son named Moni on Feb. 8, 1970. 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 Trivandrum Zoo, in southern India, as a mate for
Mohini[35]. 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. 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 Washington
from the Brookfield Zoo and bred to Mohini[36] and Kesari.[37] (Poona would have been regarded
as a Bengal tiger for the first two years of his life because the Indo-Chinese subspecies was not
recognized until 1968.) Mohini did not conceive.
Page 7 of 22
Kesari produced six orange cubs, an extraordinary number, especially for a first litter, but only one
survived, (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 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.[38] (Poona also fathered litters by
two other tigresses in Brookfield.) In 1974 Marvina, Ramana, and Kesari were sent to the Cincinnati
Zoo and Botanical Garden, 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.[39]
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. 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[7] 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 January 13, 1968.
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 paid $35,000 for her and gave her to the Zoological Society of
Florida, preferred the name Princess.[41][42] 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.[10] 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, 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 are
not on display. An orange brother of Mohini's named Ramesh lived in the Mnagerie du Jardin des
Plantes (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.[7] 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
Page 8 of 22
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 its 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. The phenomenon of
spontaneous ovulation in a tiger was first observed by Devra Kleiman, in one of the white tigresses
at 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 Jacobs
farm) in Peru, Indiana, was the founder of many American white tiger lines, especially those used in
circuses.[44] His grandfather was a registered Siberian tiger, named Kubla, who was born at the
Como Park, Zoo, and Conservatory in Saint Paul, Minnesota.[45][46] Kubla's parents were born in
the wild. He was bred to a Bengal tigress named Susie, from a west coast zoo, at the Great Plains
Zoo 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. Julius
Von 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 was
responsible for introducing Siberian genes into previously pure Bengal line of white tigers in North
America. He may also be the source of a gene for stripelessness. Tigers of mixed or unknown
ancestry are called generics, by zoo people. 97% of tiger genomes are in private hands.[48] Kubla
was also bred to an Amur tigress named Katrina, who was born at the Rotterdam Zoo, and passed
through the hands of two American zoos before joining Kubla and Susie at the AZA accredited Great
Plains Zoo (see International Tiger Studbook). Kubla and Katrina have living pure-Amur descendants
which may include a line of white tigers, that are claimed as pure-Amurs, which originated out of
Center Hill, Florida. These white tigers are not registered Amur tigers. A tiger trainer named Alan
Gold 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 her
daughter Rewati in Washington D.C., 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.[49] 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
Page 9 of 22
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.[49]
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[51][52] , in February 1975 for
$20,000 in Detroit. Tony's parents, Raja and Sheba, produced two more white cubs at the Baltimore
County Fair on June 27, 1976.[53] The cubs were a white male, named "Baltimore County Fair", a
white 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 in
Washington D.C.. Maharani died in 1984. Baron Julius Von Uhl had another three white cubs born
between 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 the
AZA 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, 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, Maryland. 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.
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. Tony, Bagheera, and Frosty lived for years with a troop of
Hawthorn 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 are
cross eyed. Bhim and Sumita became the world record parents of white cubs. In 1976 there were 39
white tigers-7 in New Delhi, 7 in Kolkata, one in Guwahati, 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.
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 sold
white tigers[58] for $60,000 each to other zoo’s after having establised a new unrelated blood line
of white tigers. Siegfried & 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
Page 10 of 22
The AZA accredited Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Nebraska bought Tony's parents and orange sister
Obie (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 of
Ranjit and Obie, born at the Omaha Zoo, fathered the first test tube tigers[60], 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.[61] 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.[62]
In 1983 Rewati was paired with Ika, from Kesari's 1976 litter, at the Columbus Zoo[63]. Ika killed
Rewati in the act of mating[64]. 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
daughter 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 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 grandson of Kesari, was also
dispatched to Columbus on breeding loan from the Hawthorn Circus, of Grayslake, Illinois, which
eventually had 80 white tigers. In1984 five white tiger cubs were stolen from the Hawthorn Circus
in Portland, Oregon, and two died. The tigers were touring with the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey
Circus. The culprit was a veterinarian who was sentenced to one year in prison and six months in a
halfway house.[65]
In 1974 a white cub was born in the AZA accredited Racine Zoological Gardens in Wisconsin.. The
father, named Bucky, killed the white cub. The mother, named Bonnie, was later bred with an orange
littermate of Tony named "Chequila", who belonged to James Witchey of Ravenna, Ohio, who bought
him from Dick Hartman of South Lebanon, Ohio, when he was four or five years of age. Chequila
proved to be a white gene carrier and fathered at least one white cub in the Racine Zoo in 1980. It
is not known whether Bucky, who came from the Fort Wayne Children's Zoo in Indiana, and his
daughter Bonnie, were related to any of the established strains of white tigers. By 1987 10% of North
American 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 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
[66].
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 Nandan
Kanan Zoo. Today the Nandankanan Zoo has the largest collection of white tigers in India. The
Cincinnati Zoo acquired two female white tigers from the Nandan Kanan Zoo, in the hopes of
Page 11 of 22
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 Aquariums (AZA)'s Species Survival Plan
(SSP) , (which has no such program for the Bengal tiger species), 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”.[68][69][70][71][72][73]. In these such statements it was clear that the AZA desires a
controlled monopoly on the tiger conservation issues. But the white tiger has proven to be a “stand
alone” single producer of conservation dollars. This is why so many AZA zoo’s support the white
tigers and have them on exhibit. Out of the over 200+ AZA zoos in the United States, over 50 of
them currently actively exhibit the white tiger(s), and many of those use the white tiger as their
flagship animal in marketing. Further, in almost all of the AZA zoos that have any species of tiger
on exhibit, it was found that most of those zoos promote the white tiger through their gift shops, and
other 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 avid
speaker against the white tiger. But his own zoos sees things a little
differently, and their gift shops throughout the park carry a large assortment
of white tiger souvenir. Showing that once again, the white tiger is a big
supporting-vehicle in generating revenue that helps support that zoo’s
conservation 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 Programs
at London Zoo, has said that she would not be adverse to using a white tiger in a zoo breeding
program provided it was purebred.
She said that it's a naturally occurring gene and it shouldn't be selected for or against.[74]Zoo
breeding programs for tigers may be of doubtful value to conservation in any case. 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.[75]
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 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 the
cub didn't stay white.[76][77][78]
Page 12 of 22
There have been other cases of white tiger, white lion, and white panther cubs being born, and then
changing to normal color. White tigers which were a mixture of the Rewa and Orissa strains, born
at the Nandan Kanan 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 the Clyde Beatty Cole Bros.
Circus, and had also worked as a veterinarian at the Frankfurt Zoo. The Western Plains Zoo rejected
the idea. Stripeless (Snow White) Tigers
One of these 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 as "A white variety of Tiger is sometimes seen, with the stripes very opaque, and not
to be observed except in certain angles of light."[79]. Naturalist Richard Lydekker said that, "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."[80] Hamilton Smith said, "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 stated that, "a
creamy white, with the ordinary tigerine stripes so faintly marked that
White Tiger and White Stripless
they were only visible in certain lights." Edwin Henry Landseer also
Tiger
drew 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 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 & 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.[81]
In 2004, a blue-eyed, stripeless white tiger was born at a wildlife refuge in Alicante, Spain. Its parents
are normal orange unrelated Bengals. The cub was named Artico ("Arctic"). Stripeless white tigers
were thought to be sterile until Siegfried & 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 the orange
color
Page 13 of 22
Genetics & albinism
The presence of stripes indicates 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. 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 color on agouti hairs.[82] 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. As early as 1907, naturalist Richard Lydeker doubted the existence
of albino tigers.[83] 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 the 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.
Cross-eyed, is not a result of inbreeding.
The only pure-Bengal white tiger reported to be cross eyed was Mohini's
daughter Rewati. Strabismus is directly linked to the white gene and is not
a separate consequence of inbreeding.[85][86][87]
The orange littermates of white tigers are not prone to strabismus. Siamese
cats and albinos of every species which has been studied all exhibit the same
visual pathway abnormality found in white tigers. Siamese cats are also
sometimes cross eyed, as are some albino ferrets. The visual pathway
abnormality was first documented in white tigers in the brain of Moni, after
he 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 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, white tigers have a problem with spatial
orientation, and bump into things, until they learn to compensate. Some compensate by crossing their
eyes. When the neurons pass from the retina to the brain and reach the optic chiasma some cross and
some 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 to
temperature 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 is
why Siamese cats and Himalayan rabbits are darker on their faces, ears, legs, and tails, where the cold
penetrates 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 and
returned there. "In spite of living in a dusty courtyard they were always snow white."[2] A weakened
immune system is directly linked to reduced pigmentation in white tigers. White tigers react strangely
Page 14 of 22
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 Cincinnati
Zoo 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, crossed
eyes, 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 be
related to reduced pigmentation in the eye, reported from the AZA accredited Milwaukee County
Zoo.[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 limited
to the small number of white tigers in captivity. According to Kailash Sankhala the last white tiger
ever seen in the wild was shot in 1958. Some animal rights activists have called for a halt to the
breeding of white tigers altogether. It is probably due to the rarity and demand for white tigers that
Rewati 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. Rewati also lived at the AZA accredited Bronx Zoo for several years and they
may have attempted to breed her. She appeared on the covers of the April 1970 National Geographic
and the June 22, 1973 issue of Science.
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. Most zoo's are now doing this.
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 AZA accredited San Francisco Zoo, and had
an orange daughter named Kanchana.[98] Bharat and Priya were also bred with an unrelated orange
tiger from the AZA accredited 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
AZA accredited Cincinnati Zoo. Ranjit had several mates at the AZA accredited Omaha Zoo.[99] 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.
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 tigress
gave birth to four stripeless white, and one orange cub, at the zoo in Guadalajara, Mexico, which has
an association with Siegfried & Roy, in 2007. The fact that the litter included one orange cub shows
that the father, Nino, is orange. This was the sixth litter born at the zoo.[109][110]
Page 15 of 22
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.
Siegfried & Roy did at least one outcross.[116] 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. At one point the Cincinnati Zoo was the only zoo in the world
breeding them.[117] The New Delhi Zoo decided to try again reasoning that if Cleopatra could be
born healthy and normal as the product of three generations of brother to sister unions then so might
white tigers. (Cleopatra's parents were not brother and sister.) Mice have been bred brother to sister
for 150 generations without ill effect, and are therefore 99.999% genetically identical.
Hybrid white tigers appear to be healthier than white subspecific purebreds
and an analogy can be made with purebred vs. mongrel dogs.[118]India is
committed to keeping their white tigers purebred. In the mid 1980s
Siegfried & Roy owned 10% of the world's white tigers. In the 1980s
Siegfried & 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. Siegfried & Roy have
bred white tigers in collaboration with the Nashville Zoo and they appeared
on Larry King with white tiger cubs born at the Nashville Zoo. 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.
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 The
Bombay Natural History Society reported 17 white tigers shot between 1907 and 1933. E.P. Gee
collected accounts of 35 white tigers from the wild up to 1959, with still more uncounted from Assam
where he had his tea plantation, although Assam with its humid jungles was considered a likelier
haunt for black tigers. Some white tigers in the wild had reddish stripes known as "red tigers". The
Boga-bagh, or "white tiger", Tea Estate in upper Assam, was named that after two white tigers were
shot there in the early 1900s. While the modern population descends from Rewan tigers, white tigers
may 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 the
geographic range of the Siberian tiger, and perhaps in the Indochinese, Sumatran and Javan
subspecies, but not among South China, Caspian (Panthera tigris virgata) or Bali Tigers. Korean and
Manchurian tigers were previously recognized as separate subspecies (Panthera tigris coreensis and
Panthera tigris longipilis or amurensis)[124][125], but they are now regarded part of the Amur tiger
subspecies (Siberian) named for the Amur river. There were also blue tigers reported from southern
China, 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 means
specifically in Trengganu, in the Malay Peninsula, or elsewhere in Asia, in which case there may be
Page 16 of 22
no record of white tigers ever existing in the Malay Peninsula.[126] The Malayan Tiger (Panthera
tigris malayensis or Panthera tigris jacksoni) was only recognized as a subspecies separate from the
Indochinese (Panthera tigris corbetti) in 2004, and the Indochinese 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 Indochinese tiger, it is uncertain whether there were also white Indochinese tigers or
white Malayan 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 taegeuk 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 Empire
(1556–1605). A painting from 1590 of Akbar while 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 Pune. 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.[127] 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[2]. There have been rumors of white tigers in the wild in India since
then, but none have been considered credible. It has been suggested from the casual way that Jim
Corbett makes reference to a white tigress, which he filmed with two orange cubs, in his "Man-eaters
of Kumoan" (1946)[128] that white tigers were nothing out of the ordinary to him. Corbett's black
and white film footage is probably the only film in existence of a white tiger in the wild. It illustrates
again 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 white
tigers holds that they were symptomatic of inbreeding as a consequence of over hunting and habitat
loss, as tiger populations became isolated. In 1965 there was a chair upholstered with a white tiger
skin in the "India collection" of Marjorie Merriweather Post, at her Hillwood estate in Washington
D.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 a
photograph of the minister of defense for the United Arab Emirates with a stuffed white tiger in his
office.[130] The actor Cesar Romero owned a white tiger skin.
Page 17 of 22
Conclusion
The history of the white tiger is a remarkable one. And it is true that in the
very early years of captivity there was some inbreeding. But we must
remember that those were considered to be the standards of all zoo’s in the
1950s - 1960s. That, coupled with the act of inbreeding, (which kept the
prue species in tack) was done out of complete desperation to save the
white gene from being lost forever. In today’s standards, inbreeding is a
thing 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 we
see 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 the
world, never to be seen again, in zoo’s, museums or otherwise. The Balinese Tiger became extinct
in 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 in
the wild 1958, the world will always have them in captivity, and because of that, India in now starting
to 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 one
of the best tools zoo’s have in their conservation arsenal for generating revenue to fund such
expensive undertakings in all aspects of conservation.
_________________________________________
References
i1 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: Roychoudhury
i3 National Geographic - “Enchantress ! Rare White Tigress Comes to Washington” May 1961,Vol 119, No. 5
i4 Five out of Six cubs die - Great Plains Zoo, North Dakota - 2009 http://www.greatplainszoo.org/Articles
1. 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." National
Geographic May 1961
11 Husain, Dawar, Breeding And Hand-Rearing Of White Tiger Cubs Panthera tigris At New Delhi Zoo, International Zoo
Yearbook Vol. VI 1966
12. Sankhala, Kailash, Breeding Behavior Of The Tiger Panthera tigris In Rajasthan, International Zoo Yearbook Vol. VII
1967 pg. 133
13. Desai, J.H., & Malhotra, A.K., "The White Tiger" New Delhi Publications, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting,
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133. "Genetic abnormality of the visual pathways in a "white" tiger" R.W. Guillery and J.H. Kaas Science June 22, 1973
134. "Cross-eyed tigers" Scientific American 229:43 August 1973
135. "Now He's The Cat's Meow" Dan Geringer Sports Illustrated Vol. 65 No. 3 July 21, 1986
136. "Here Kitty Kitty: Cincinnati Zoo Breeds Five Rare White Tigers" People Weekly 21:97-9 January 23, 1984
137. "White Tiger: An Indian Maharaja Is Trying To Sell His Rare Cub To A U.S. Zoo." Life 31:69 October 15, 1951
138. "White Tiger From India" Life 49: 47-8 December 19, 1960
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143. "White tiger exports banned, India, N.Y. Times D. 4, 1960 12:2;
144. "'White' Tigress Arrives by Air On Way to Zoo in Washington." N.Y. Times Dec. 1, 1960 pg. 37 L+;
145. "Eisenhower Is Wary as He meets a 'White' Tiger." N.Y. Times Dec. 6, 1960 pg. 47 L+;
146. Husain, Dawar "Breeding And Hand-Rearing Of White Tiger Cubs Panthera tigris At Delhi Zoo." The International Zoo
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147. Bruning, Fred, "Hall Has A White Tiger by the Handle." The Miami Herald Jan. 14, 1968;
148. "Lady Is A Tiger." The Miami Herald Jan. 19, 1968; "First White Tiger In Africa" & "How To Breed A White Tiger." Zoon
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149 Roychoudhury, A.K., The Indian White Tiger Studbook (1989);\
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151. "President Gets White Tiger for National Zoo" The Philadelphia Inquirer Tuesday Morning Dec. 6, 1960
152. "Death of white tiger" Washington Post July 9, 1971 pgs. B1, B5
153. Greenberg, Robert I, "White Tigress Visits Zoo for 3 Days And Monkeys See Red" The Philadelphia Inquirer Saturday
Morning Dec. 3, 1960
154. "White Tiger At Zoo For Three-Day Visit" The Evening Bulletin, Philadelphia, Friday Dec. 2, 1960
155. "He's Not Enchanted: Eisenhower Accepts Tigress-Distantly" The Bulletin, Philadelphia, Dec. 6, 1960
156. "20 year old Mohini Rewa put to death at National Zoo" Washington Post April 3, 1979 pg. B1
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160. "White Bengal tiger imported for Longleat safari park" The London Times March 22, 1989 pg. 3d
161. "White tigers at Bristol Zoo" The London Times August 17, 1963 pg. 8b.
162. "Siberian tiger cubs born at Como Zoo" The New York Times July 23, 1958 pg. 40:2
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