White, Black & Golden Tigers

[tigerluver]

The modern tiger genome is very, very small compared to what once was. Clearly, if in recent time no white tiger has been produced, there are no heterozygous specimens left. Sometimes you just have to infer the present situation, no scholarly article necessary. Thus, probability is that the white gene is killed off. Tigers do not reproduce in high enough for that mutation to occur as often as it did, so it's not coming back either. 

Secondly, there is plenty of proof of white tigers existing in the wild, but you keep denying with the explanation of being skeptical. Corbett is a legitamate, reliable figure. He even has a picture to backup his claims. Hoaxing images in his time wasn't easy, if at all possible. Furthermore, there have been artistic renditions of snow white and striped white tigers in the previous centuries to support other text accounts. Would you think anyone at the time would say they saw a stripeless tiger if they hadn't really seen one? Tigers were considered a striped beast exclusively back then. 

The overskepticism of old accounts bugs me. With the logic you applied to Corbett, the giant fossils of the Ngandong tiger (1933), Cromerian lion (1908), and American lion (1932) must be lies as the repsective naturalists only described the specimens in text. Our modern knowledge has been built off of these past naturalists. What's to say modern scientists don't fabricate or exaggerate data any less than they could have? I've seen more instances of modern data being skew than data from the last centuries.

Finally, you question my love for cats, which is flat out unnecessary.  Tell me, how does outbreeding the white gene hurt the population? You're taking an extreme approach and not listening to any of the evidence Guate or I discuss. Tigers in captivity are genetically controlled and manipulated. That why zoos send off their specimens all over the world, to outbreed them. If we let "nature" takes it course then we'd have even more inbred specimens in these captive facilities. The defects in white tigers are the products of inbreeding, not the white gene as Guate mentioned. Outbreeding the heterzygous regular tigers not only saves the gene and the health of the future white specimens, but increases the tigers' genetic variation. So, in the process of zoos sending off their specimens to each other to outbreed, we'd get a natural white specimen occasionaly when heterzygous regular tigers are matched. 

Supporting Guate's final statement. Nature isn't recovering on its own, especially in today's situation. If you don't want the right people to interfere, then sit back and watch it all disappear.


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