John Varty & Tiger Canyon

[GuateGojira]

I think most people is loosing the real point here.

Although this new approach support the distinction of just two subspecies with three conservation units, this don't support the breeding of ALL the "generic" tigers.

Why? Well, if you read the document, you will see that the three conservation units are these:
1. Amur-Caspian tigers.
2. South East Asian tigers.
3. Sunda tigers (Sumatra only at this day).

So, this scenario present this facts:
1. If you have an Amur x Bengal, it is useless as they are different groups/clades.
2. If you have a Bengal x Indochinese, it is good and can be used.
3. If you have an Amur x Sumatran, it is useless as they are different subspecies.
4. If you have a Bengal x Sumatran, it is useless as they are different subspecies.
5. If you have a Bengal x Chinese, it is good and can be used.

As we can see, only the pure Amur tigers, pure Sumatran tigers, pure or mix Bengal-Indochinese-South China-Malayan tigers can be used for breeding. Other type of combinations most be discarded, like some presented above.

The document itself is NOT an "open door" for all the "junk" tigers in USA and other parts of the world. In fact, as most of the captive tigers are mix of Amur x Bengal, they are directly useless, as there is already a perfectly good captive population of Amur tigers and there is no need of the inclusion of mixed specimens in a perfectly good population. The same goes to the Sumatran tigers, as there is a perfect captive population of this subspecies, so no need of Sumatran x other tiger groups.

Now, what this document suggest is the use of Bengal specimens in order the enlarge the genetic of the Indochinese-South China-Malayan tigers in captivity. In old posts, I suggested to use the Indochinese tigers to enlarge the genetic of the few South China tigers, specially for those in Africa, which are a healthy population that although good right now, it will need new "blood" in the long therm.

So, in conclusion, Wilting et al. (2015) is not a libertine point of view, but a suggestion of a correct management for some captive populations. In the wild, there is no need of more re-introductions (for the moment), we need to conserve the ones already there.

Just one final idea, although there are very few specimens of Indochina, South China or Malaysia to get a real idea of they size, it is probably that the inclusion of Bengal DNA could increase the size of the other populations. However, we most take in count that the largest Indochina tiger recorded was about the same size than the largest Bengal tiger recorded, while the largest South China and Malayan tigers were of the same size than an average Bengal-Amur tigers, although for very small samples. I think that probably these differences are owing to clinal adaptations.
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