White Tigers - Marketing a Fraud

Conservation. It is a word that we hear and throw around often. It is ubiquitous in the media and, in some of us, conjures up a warm feeling, particularly when it flows freely from those that we believe have everything under control, those that we believe will stem the tide of bad news that we repeatedly hear from the so-called wild. While the word conservation sounds pleasing, the concept of conservation is largely misunderstood. Unfortunately, most of us view conservation according only to individual species, and in so doing erringly conclude that as long as those individual species exist in sufficient number, then we may check conservation off of our collective to-do list. Upon a closer and more thorough inspection though, we see that this conclusion is fundamentally and dangerously flawed, and is not only NOT preventing endangerment and extinction, but is also leaving a trail of devastating suffering in its wake.

Perhaps no other single species embodies the issues of endangerment and extinction more than the tiger. Sleek and graceful, powerful and exotic, awe-inspiring and beautiful, the tiger is the very definition of "charismatic mega fauna." And if the bold and beautiful orange and black felines illicit such an intense response in the human animal, the mysterious and perhaps even mystical white tiger captures our attention even more acutely. With its ghostly white appearance and searing blue eyes, the white tiger is difficult to ignore. Furthermore, we humans engage in an ongoing fascination with anything that we consider to be rare; and so, like gold, we value the white tiger for its supposed rarity, and find a ready rationalization for perpetuating its breeding by simply engaging one, perhaps now meaningless, word: conservation. After all, they must be "saved." If the orange and white tigers are facing such a gloomy future in the wild, then surely the rare white tiger is the one in the most trouble, the pinnacle of the endangerment problem, the poster child for the wreckage that the reckless attitudes of human beings have left in what we used to call wild places.

Such is the conclusion that we often collectively come to when we view conservation as an issue that affects only individual species, especially the individual species that we happen to find the most charismatic. The problem with this reasoning is that it fails to consider the bigger picture. Specifically, it fails to include the environment, or habitat, in which these charismatic species live, depend upon for their survival, and in which they each make a significant contribution that belongs uniquely to them.

If the white tiger is the poster child for any issue, it is the poster child for this faulty reasoning. The headlines are all too familiar: this zoo or that performer or this wildlife center is breeding white tigers in order to save them from extinction and restore them to their native habitats. Both the media and the public adore these types of stories, but the heartwarming and short-lived nature of today's news belies the real story that will surface for the white tiger cubs tomorrow. The truth is simple, yet difficult for many people to accept. White tigers are not a species and do not have a native habitat. Tigers do not inhabit any section of the globe in which it would be advantageous for their survival to be white. This includes the Siberian Tiger, which is actually more properly called the Amur tiger, as its habitat is the Amur River Region between China and the Russian far east.

The real story behind white tigers is revealed by the subject that many of us dreaded in high school or collegiate biology: genetics. What we call the "Royal" White Tiger is in fact a genetic anomaly, caused by a double recessive gene occurring so rarely in nature that it is estimated only 1 in every 10,000 tigers born in the wild is white, and not likely to live for very long.* Born with a condition that we call "leucism," the pigment does not color the skin and the fur, and more importantly, robs the animal of one of the main tools for its survival - camouflage. Without the proper coloring, the ambush technique upon which tigers depend for catching food is seriously compromised. We do tigers no service at all by forcing more of them to be white. If anyone were foolish enough to attempt to release a white tiger into any habitat that tigers normally occupy, it would most likely starve to death. Dr. Dan Laughlin, DVM, PhD, who is widely recognized internationally for his expertise in the care and management of zoological animals, has an international consulting practice limited to zoological animals, and fully researched and documented the accurate genealogy and origin of the white tiger in the U.S., states it well (the bold is mine): "...when a deleterious recessive genetic mutation randomly occurs that is disadvantageous for the survival of the animal, such as white color in a tropical jungle environment, the animal does not survive to pass on that genetic mutation or disadvantageous characteristic to its offspring."* In other words, cruel as it may sound, nature is not providing a place for the white tiger.

If nature is designed in such a way as to prevent the survival of genetic mutations that are a danger to the survival of an entire species, then why do we see white tigers in shows, zoos, circuses, carnivals, and wildlife centers across America? Once again, we find our answer in genetics, and in this case, its uglier side. How do we circumvent the laws of nature to create more animals for which nature does not provide a home? We don't. We simply bend the laws of nature to our own wills. We engage in a practice with animals that we would never dream of doing purposely with humans. We inbreed them. Those of us that survived the genetics section of those dreaded biology courses know that genetic diversity is vital to the health of both individuals and entire populations of species. The most critically endangered feline species and subspecies, such as the South China Tiger and the Amur Leopard, are considered to be functionally extinct by some experts because with numbers as low as 20 or 30, inbreeding is inevitable. Yet in the case of the white tiger, the breeding of mothers to sons, brothers to sisters, and fathers to daughters and grand-daughters is commonplace.

According to Dr. Laughlin, in addition to the now famous and severely inbred line of white Bengal tigers that can be traced back to Mohan, a white tiger taken as a cub out of the wild in 1951 and bred back to his daughter and grand-daughters,
"there is a second and separate origin of the white tiger which occurred spontaneously in two separate private collections in this country, when both owners inbred brothers to sisters that were all offspring of two litters resulting from crossing a pure Siberian male and a Bengal female at a small zoo in South Dakota." In any case, inbreeding is a necessary ingredient of the recipe for white tigers, and there is a price to be paid for it.

White tigers endure a host of health problems about which the public is largely unaware. These include immune system deficiencies that cause many to live miserable and short lives, scoliosis of the spine, hip dysplasia, neurological disorders, cleft palates, and protruding, bulging eyes. Eighty percent of all white tigers are stillborn; many of the ones that survive are too deformed to put on display. Out of the ones that look pretty, according to some tiger trainers, only 1 in 30 will consistently perform.* White tigers are at the mercy of a double-edged sword; they are often preferred by trainers because, as fundamentally sick animals, they are very dependent upon humans. On the other hand, the relentless inbreeding takes its toll on their mental capacity, rendering them unreliable as performers. At this point someone must be faced with the question rarely asked by the reporters who happily recount the birth of the cubs: what now? What happens to the 29 out of 30 white tigers that were too dull and sick to perform? We know by the former discussion that they could not have been, and will never be, released into the wild. Tracing their fate is exceedingly difficult, but the paths in front of them are bleak to say the least. The lucky ones will find permanent homes in accredited sanctuaries, but the majority will either be killed or sold to traveling zoos, circuses, and wildlife centers, living lives in quarters that are often cramped, filthy, and rarely inspected.

There is yet another side to this sad story. What becomes of the orange and white cubs (by far the majority) born to parents who were specifically paired to render the desirable white coloring? As with the unwanted whites, their fate is difficult to trace, but will most likely include becoming victims of canned hunts, being sold into the exotic pet trade to live out their lives as breeding animals, or being killed, dismembered, and their parts shipped to be sold in Asian markets. Virtually none of them will join their wild counterparts for the purpose of re-populating their severely dwindling numbers. They will never see the wild lands from which their forebears were taken, and as such, will never really know what it is like to be tigers.

Meanwhile, healthy wild tigers, able to engage in the activities for which tigers were designed and assume their role in carefully balanced ecosystems that depend on them as much as any other life form within them, disappear at alarming rates. Just one hundred years ago, there were approximately 100,000 tigers living in the wild; some experts estimate that fewer than 3,500 individuals roam the forests of our world, from India to southeast Asia to the Amur River region, today. Three subspecies of tigers are gone forever, and the South China tiger is well on its way to joining their ranks.

If the relentless breeding of white tigers has nothing to do with conservation, and the resulting animals are sick and live lives in captivity at best and suffer small quarters and little veterinary care at worst, then why do people continue to breed them? The answer is simple. When the genetic line to which Dr. Laughlin refers was continued and promulgated by the Cincinnati Zoo, the resulting cubs fetched as much as $60,000 each, the beginning of many, many more thousands of dollars that have passed through countless hands and yet still do not lead the endangered tiger back to its rightful home. Countless thousands of dollars that do nothing to stop the poaching of wild tigers. Countless thousands of dollars that do nothing to stave off the destruction of wild tiger habitats. Countless thousands of dollars that only serve to keep wild, dignified creatures behind bars. Do we really value genetic mutations more than the habitat in which healthy wild tigers live and thrive?

Dr. Laughlin believes that "The genealogical misrepresentation, repeated inbreeding, exhibition and sale, for $60,000 each, of white tigers by the Cincinnati Zoo initiated the greatest conservation deception of the American public in history. That deception continues through today. In my view, exhibiting and breeding white tigers is the very antithesis of conservation, is dishonest and unethical and is tantamount to catering to the public's desire to see genetic aberrations rather than educating the public regarding the incredible process of natural selection, how the unbelievable diversity of life has evolved on our planet throughout the past 50 million years and the crucial need for us to preserve natural habitats and stop the destruction of our global ecosystem if we desire to save any threatened or endangered species from extinction."

The insidiousness of this deception is that the heartwarming stories of individual cubs being born again and again creates the illusion that we are doing something. It creates the illusion that the so-called experts are solving the problems that we create with our own complacency. It is time to face the issue squarely. There can be no conservation of species without conservation of habitats, and there can be no conservation of habitats without conservation of entire ecosystems; therefore we are accountable for how our actions affect those ecosystems, in every choice that we make. Conservation. It is not about the white tiger. It is about us.

Will our fascination with tigers give them back the dignified, free life that they had earned by surviving every hardship nature threw at them before we came along? Or will we be satisfied that we have done our job by having enough of them living in cages, performing tricks, and dazzling us with genetic deformities we would never dream of perpetuating in humans? If we choose the second option then there is one more reality that we must be willing to accept. If we pull the animals that we like out of the sinking ship that is their destroyed habitat and call it a day, every single solitary species that we did NOT find charismatic goes down with that ship, and with them the history of the natural world, and answers to questions that we perhaps no longer deem fundamental because we have so thoroughly removed ourselves from that world. It begs the question, if a tiger can't know who he or she really is, how can we know who we really are?

Sharyn Beach

*http://www.bigcatrescue.org/cats/wild/white_tigers_genetics.htm
*http://www.bigcatrescue.org/cats/wild/white_tigers_fraud.htm
*http://www.bigcatrescue.org/cats/wild/white_tigers.htm