White, Black & Golden Tigers

[GuateGojira]

The info and the reference of the video of Jim Corbett are in his book “Man Eaters of Kumaon”. Jim made several videos of wild tigers, sadly many of them are lost forever, although other are safe in the Natural History Museum of London (as far I remember). There is even a picture of the white tigress and her cubs at the book.
 
On the white tigers, in fact, I was reading, again, the chapters on the white tigers, and I noted that I was wrong, because ALL the white tiger’s lineages came from Mohan and all are highly inbreed. The problem is that although Indian white tigers have problems, the American white tigers are even worst, because the Indian ones are STILL 100% pure Bengals, while the American ones are a mix of Amur-Bengal. In this last point, I am right, at least.
 
A study on white tigers from Dr Luo in 2012 or 2013, don’t remember the exact year, she showed that in fact, there is no need of constant inbreeding in order to produce white tigers. There is only one gene what causes the new color. Sadly, this is somewhat late for many of these captive populations, especially for the American one, which is practically useless. I will found the document in order to be read by all.
 
About Varty and Antle, I agree that many of them actions seem to be positive for tiger conservation and are based in “good intentions”, but we must remember the old phrase: the way to hell is paved of “good intentions”. A deeper analysis show that in fact, both men are searching they own benefit and none of them follow the purposes of conserve the purity of the tiger varieties. Besides, the actions of Antle are even worst, as he promote the breeding of American white tigers and the unnatural ligers. So NO, I can’t see him with good eyes, tiger conservation is not a business, at least, not like what he is doing. About Varty, well, he made a “fake” documentary and now he allows “rich” people to “hunt” his tigers with sedative darts for money.
 
On the Bengal tigers in America, the old webpage “Tiger territory” (AKA Lairweb) stated that at the years 2000 or around it, there was only one pure Bengal tigress in America. At 2014, this tigress is surely dead and it is 100% certain that no pure Bengal tiger exist in USA, Mexico, Argentina or any other American country.
 
Finally, about the “pure” tigers in circuses and private facilities, Luo et al. (2010) stated that these specimens still present genetic variations that are now absents in the wild, so even those “pure” or more or less pure tigers can be used for conservation.
 
Current tiger conservation conserves the idea of “subspecies”, but this is more for “law issues” than for Biology. As I have showed many times, there is not a universal classification for tigers, with some scientists stating that there are at least 5 or 6 subspecies and others saying that there are only two and even others that state that there are two species with many other subspecies. At the end, it will depend on the point of view and interpretation of the data. The only fact that we can’t denied is that Amur and Sumatran tigers are so different that they clearly represent two different tiger forms and most not be crossed.
 
Bengal and Amur tigers are also different, and although the distance between them is much smaller than that of the Island specimens, they still present differences that must be taken in count. They are separated since about 20,000 years ago, so they must not be crossed. Finally, the difference between Indian and Indochinese tigers is very small, but it has the largest backup from a morphological (Mazák) and genetically (Luo) point of view, with respect of other tropical varieties in the mainland. In this case, they must not be crossed too. Now, about the Malayan and Indochinese tigers, there is a little genetic difference but the morphological data don’t support this, however the AZA and the European zoos are already breeding them separately, so this new “variety” is more man-made than nature-made. At least in this case, this point of view is good for Malayan tigers, because the government protect they tigers like a national symbol and the idea that these tigers are “unique” increase they protection. The differentiation of the South China tiger is still in debate as the evidence is scanty (morphologically and genetically); however we must take in count that there are very few specimens and the last ones still alive are highly inbreed.
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