Price of beauty is too high

White tiger ( Panthera tigris, tygr, bila forma) from ZOO Bratislava, Slovakia

As you can see, this female is cross-eyed. Do you want to know why? Read the text below...

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You might not know: Why is white tiger white? Many people do not know it, but white tiger is not any special species. It is simply a variant of normal Bengal tiger, but a hybrid one. No, it is not albino. White tigers have blue eyes and dark skin on their paws. They are something special, having some recessive gene, which makes them white. White tigers are extremelly rare in the wild and they have problems to hide and hunt for prey, because their colour makes them too visible for hunting. In India, people managed to capture one young male white tiger in 1951. They let him mate with normal female. None baby was white – so the father mated with his normal orange daughter and white babies were finally born. All white tigers in the World’s ZOOs have origin in this only one captured male. Unfortunately, too common way how to breed white tigers is inbreeding, which means, that fathers mate with daughters, brothers mate with sisters and so on. As a result, many cubs are born deformed or dead. White tigers are cross-eyed, they have damaged brain and back. Tigers pay too high price for their beauty.

There is a serious discussion, if white tigers should be kept. In fact, ZOOs in North America want to stop breeding them at all. Right now, there are at least 11 color variants of white tigers! They are great attraction for ZOOs and they bring money, but the price is maybe too high.....

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Other white tigers shots (also cubs!):




[link] [link] [link]


To see more, look at my ZOO and BIG CATS GALLERY



_{This photo belongs to me and I can very easily prove, that it was me, who took this shot. So please, respect my copyright if you want to use my work, ask me first to gain my permission, please! Thank you}