page_title: White tiger
section_title: Inbreeding and outcrossing
hierarchical_section_title: White tiger / Inbreeding and outcrossing
caption_attribution_description: White Tiger 6
context_page_description: The white tiger or bleached tiger is a pigmentation variant of the Bengal tiger, which is reported in the wild from time to time in the Indian states of Madhya Pradesh, Assam, West Bengal, Bihar and Odisha in the Sunderbans region and especially in the former State of Rewa. Such a tiger has the black stripes typical of the Bengal tiger, but carries a white or near-white coat.
context_section_description: Because of the extreme rarity of the white tiger allele in the wild, 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. Today there is a large number of white tigers in captivity. A white Amur tiger may have been born at Center Hill and has given rise to a strain of white Amur tigers. A man named Robert Baudy realized that his tigers had white genes when a tiger he sold to Marwell Zoo in England developed white spots, and bred them accordingly. The Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa Bay had four of these white Amur tigers, descended from Robert Baudy's stock.
  It has also 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. The white tigers 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 the San Francisco Zoo and had an orange daughter named Kanchana. Bharat and Priya were also bred with an unrelated orange tiger from Knoxville Zoo, and Ranjit was bred to this tiger's sister, also from Knoxville Zoo. Bhim fathered several litters with an unrelated orange tigress named Kimanthi at the Cincinnati Zoo. ankam Ranjeeth had several mates at the Omaha Zoo.
  The last descendants of Bristol Zoo's white tigers were a group of orange tigers from outcrosses which were bought by a Pakistani senator and shipped to Pakistan. Rajiv, Pretoria Zoo's white tiger, who was born in the Cincinnati Zoo, was also outcrossed and sired at least two litters of orange cubs at Pretoria Zoo. Outcrossing is not necessarily done with the intent of producing more white cubs by resuming inbreeding further down the line. Outcrossing is a way of bringing fresh blood into the white strain. The New Delhi Zoo loaned out white tigers to some of India's better zoos 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 performed at least one outcross. In the mid-1980s they offered to work with the Indian government in the creation of a healthier strain of white tigers. The Indian government reportedly considered the offer; however, India had a moratorium on breeding white tigers after cubs were born at New Delhi Zoo with arched backs and clubbed feet, necessitating euthanasia. Siegfried & Roy have bred white tigers in collaboration with the Nashville Zoo.
  Because of the inbreeding and resulting genetic defects the Association of Zoos and Aquariums barred member zoos from breeding white tigers, white lions and king cheetahs in a white paper adopted by the board of directors in July 2011.  The first person to speak out against the displaying of white tigers was William G. Conway, General Director of the New York Zoological Society, which later became known as the Wildlife Conservation Society when he said, "White tigers are freaks.  It's not the role of a zoo to show two headed calves and white tigers."  He warned AZA in 1983 of the harm to the zoo's credibility in catering to the public's fascination with freaks, but went unheeded until 2008 when AZA issued a request to their members to stop breeding white tigers and then later in July 2011 when the AZA formally adopted that stance as policy.  Conway was attacked by Ed Maruska of the Cincinnati Zoo for his observation, but in the end Conway's belief was validated.
caption: A captive tiger in Birmingham, the United Kingdom
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