white tiger breeding should be illegal

Your source link redirects me to the homepage, so I was unable to find the specific article you tried to link to. Instead, I found http://www.greendiary.com.... It claims to be "via bigcatrescue.org". However, the sites have problems: "The ONLY way to produce a tiger or lion with a white coat is through inbreeding brother to sister or father to daughter;". Flatly untrue. While that is A way to produce a tiger with a white coat, it is not the ONLY way. Uncles and Nieces could just as easily be used. Or Cousins, etc. It claims, regarding White Tiger cubs, that "80% of those die from birth defects associated with the inbreeding necessary to cause a white coat.", when in fact "There is a myth that white tigers have an 80% infant mortality rate. However, the infant mortality rate for white tigers is no higher than it is for normal orange tigers bred in captivity." [2] I reject your source (and the source it relied upon) as unreliable. "white tigers are not a subspecies." Therefore, conserving White Tigers is conserving "Normal" Tigers, too. "They are not endangered." See above. "its not preserving the tigers if they didn't exist in the first place. in the wild, there is rarely a sighting of a white tiger." You can't say that they DON'T exist, and in the same paragraph admit that they DO. They DO exist in the wild, as you admit, but they are rare. "I might ask my opponent, do these dogs have health defects that will effect the quality of life?" How about pugs? That squashed in nose is not "normal" for the species. They're very prone to tracheal collapse. Purebred dogs, in particular, can be quite inbred, and have ailments: "Genetic conditions are a particular problem for dogs from registries whose stud books are closed. Many of the national kennel clubs require that dogs with certain genetic illnesses or who are deemed to be carriers cannot be registered. Some of the most common conditions include hip dysplasia, seen in large breed dogs, von Willebrand disease, a disease that affects platelets that is inherited in Doberman Pinschers, entropion, a curling in of the eyelid seen in Shar Peis and many other breeds, progressive retinal atrophy, inherited in many breeds, deafness, and epilepsy, known to be inherited in Belgian Shepherd Dogs, German Shepherd Dogs, Cocker Spaniels, and St. Bernards." [1] "there are only a known population of 4,000 Bengal tigers left in the wild. we should be focusing on conserving those tigers.we should focus on a healthy population of these animals, rather than a unhealthy population of white tigers." We are, of course, not really talking about the WILD Bengal Tigers, since we're talking about breeding in captivity. So this point is rather moot. Of course we should try to conserve and support these tigers. But that does not necessitate the outlawing of breeders who choose to breed White Tigers. "we don't have to intentionally breed them. the white tigers that are inbreed in zoos have crossed eyes and..." I'll interrupt here to point out some things: saying "we don't have to" is not the same as saying "you shouldn't be allowed to". I conceded from the beginning that many White Tigers are bred irresponsibly. But there is nothing INHERENT to the breeding of White Tigers which requires the level of inbreeding that gets the real problems. Which isn't as common as you seem to imply, anyway: "Other than a case of hip dysplasia that occurred in a male white tiger, we have not encountered any other body deformities or any physiological or neurological disorders. Some of these reported maladies in mutant tigers in other collections may be a direct result of inbreeding or improper rearing management of tigers generally." [2] "we intentionally breed these tigers knowing they wont have the quality of life compared to that of a Bengal tiger. for example zabu, a white tiger has hairlip and cleft palate. which means she has no upper lip to protect her teeth." "We" did not "intentionally" breed zabu to have a hairlip and a cleft palate. I doubt any breeder wants that. If there are no birth defects, then the White Tiger can be expected to live as long as the "Normal", "Cincinnati Zoo director Ed Maruska said: "We have not experienced premature death among our white tigers." [2] That cub had a birth defect. They happen. They happen more often in inbred populations, which is why I have repeatedly said that, certainly, improvements can be made. These are not arguments that necessitate the banning of the breeding of White Tigers, however. As my position is that more regulation is necessary and desirable, you must establish why your position is BETTER than more regulation to prevent excessive inbreeding. "....every white tiger in the U.S. is not only the result of repeated inbreeding of genetically defective animals..." Where do you get that they are "genetically defective"? While I agree that often inbreeding can cause problems, you seem to take it as a given that they all have defective genes. Please establish that. "Thus, anyone involved in breeding and/or exhibiting white tigers is doing a great disservice to honest conservation and preservation efforts to save the five remaining and endangered subspecies of tigers barely clinging to survival" Why, exactly, is it a disservice? More tigers are created. You cannot say that NECESSARILY the same number of "Normal" Tigers would have been bred if only White Tigers were illegal. "they keep on saying they are conserving. but believe me, its all for the money. ...white tigers are an aberration artificially bred and proliferated...for economic rather than conservation reasons. why do people breed these poor animals that are sentenced to life in a cage? there is an easy answer. these creatures are sold for nearly 60,000 dollars a piece. its all for the money not the conservation. as harsh as this may be, there isn't a place provided by nature for these tigers. there white coat is robbing them of their ability to camouflage." Even if the White Tigers were bred for purely economic reasons, you've given neither a reason that should be outlawed, nor (if purely economic rather than conservation breeding should be outlawed) any reason to think that would mean there would be more "Normal" Tigers bred. "if breeding white tigers was illegal then those innocent cubs would be spared." You haven't established that as an actual point with anything. If breeding white tigers was illegal, you'd create a "black market", and who knows how many tiger cubs would be killed by new tiger mills? "what my opponents argument might suggest, is that we should let these breeders breed white cubs and then throw the un-white cubs away." What I actually suggested was simply regulating the breeding of White Tiger cubs. One of those regulations could trivially be that one cannot breed them if one is unprepared for the possibility of non-white offspring. "the deformities of some white tigers are so severe , zoos often kill them or they re discarded" I agree that inbreeding is bad. But there are ways to increase the Tiger population, while still breeding White Tigers. Not to repeat myself, but just repeating that inbreeding is bad does not make a point away from increased regulation and towards prohibition. Nor is it true that all White Tigers have severe problems, as seems to be implied. And please do not conflate wild Tiger conservation efforts (protecting habitats, preserving from poachers) with captive breeding programs. I agree with my opponent that the conditions of Tiger breeding are often deplorable, but rather than thinking the problem can befixed by outlawing a certain color, I feel that the tigers of the world would be better served by their captive breeding being subject to regulation and oversight. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org...(dog)#Health_issues [2] http://en.wikipedia.org...