#animalcruelty

shel02004:

If nature is designed to prevent the survival of genetic mutations that are a danger to a specie’s survival – why do white tigers exist?

Natural selection would not allow the white tiger to survive in the wild. If a white tiger were to be born in the wild, the mother would either kill or abandon the cub as she knows it will not survive with its colouration and does not want to draw attention to her other cubs. So if they do not exist in the wild, why should we breed them in captivity?

White tigers are very popular among zoos, performing shows and exhibitions because they bring profit. The belief that the white tiger is a far rarer and more endangered species than the orange Bengal tiger has made it a significantly more popular cat to be seen.

In actual fact, the white tiger is simply an orange Bengal tiger with a severe genetic mutation. It is a condition called leucism whereby pigmentation is reduced due to a double recessive gene. Both parents must carry this particular gene for a white tiger to be born and is therefore a result of excessive inbreeding. This genetic anomaly is in fact so rare in nature that only 1 in 10,000 tigers are born white in the wild.

The same gene that produces the white colouration, also causes optic nerves to be wired to the wrong side of the brain, therefore making all white tigers to be cross eyed, whether it is noticeable or not. The inbreeding also leaves most white tigers with clubbed feet, cleft palates, spinal deformities, immune deficiencies and mental impairments which cause them to live miserable, short lives, if any life at all.

The truth is that every single white tiger that you see in captivity in the US has been inbred from one single tiger in the 1950s. Back in the early 1950s, a white tiger cub was captured, raised and inbred by a man in India. He bred father to daughter, mother to son, to get more white tiger cubs since this is a recessive gene that both parents must carry. This inbreeding continued for generations and now every single white tiger that you see in captivity can be traced back to that one single white tiger in the 1950s with them all been inbred ever since.

Because white tigers suffer from an enormity of problems, the ones that show visible signs of these conditions are known as the ‘throw away tigers’, they are the ones that you never see because they don’t make it on TV or in performing shows. Usually the orange ones that are born in this process are killed at birth as they are not as big money makers. In order to be a ‘perfect white tiger’, they must show no signs of deformity; they must possess a pure white coat with perfect black stripes and striking blue eyes. This is almost impossible to produce considering the amount of inbreeding involved. With severe inbreeding, 1 in 4 tigers will turn out white, 80% of which will be still-born with the remaining 20% deformed. According to some trainers, only 1 in every 30 of these white tigers will perform continuously, therefore countless tigers are being destroyed just for that one ‘perfect’ show tiger.

The myth of the rare white tiger was created to deceive the public into believing that they are an endangered species being bred for conservation purposes. This is all a fraud, if a white tiger were to be released into the wild, it would most likely starve to death. Instead they are being bred for entertainment purposes because they bring in more profit than orange ones. White tigers also rely more on their owners due to their impairments, causing them to be more popular among entertainers.

Do you support any organisations that breed white tigers? If so, you are simply supporting the exploitation of such animals, to be inbred, deformed and destroyed, not to mention the unnatural training and handling that the ‘perfect’ animals are put through, (but I will get to that in a future blog). They are the only ones that suffer.

The murder of an animal is as heinous as the murder of a person.