The Tiger

Yes, Siberian (Amur) and Bengal tigers can definitely mate. They are two subspecies of tiger. They are very similar. In my mind it is like asking whether a person living in the West can mate with a person living in the East. There's nothing stopping it from a DNA point of view. Big Cat Rescue states that crossbreeding Bengal tigers with Siberian tigers might increase the odds of producing white cubs. North China amur tiger crossed with a Bengal cat as shown in a museum specimen. This image comes from messybeast.com courtesy Sarah Hartwell. There is also the issue of mongrel tigers being quite commonplace in zoos and other facilities where tigers are used to entertain customers. They become mongrelised in zoos and circuses. In other words, the tigers are no longer purebred. The tigers that you see in zoos or circuses are often generic tigers and not a definitive subspecies. That's because they been breeding with each other which makes my point. The expert on hybrid wild cats is ...

Two examples of the unwitting, deliberate or reckless creation of the pollution of tiger genetics by cross breeding different subspecies, come to mind. In captivity the South China tiger is cross-bred with the Bengal tiger sometimes. And in India there is a startling story of a British zoo supplying an Indian Bengal tiger reserve, the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve, with a Bengal tiger that was in fact a Bengal/Siberian tiger cross-breed! The zoo, Twycross Zoo in England, did not know. They thought they would help out the dwindling tiger population in one of India's many reserves. Unwittingly they ruined (too strong a word?) the Bengal tiger population at that reserve. I have no idea if the tigress is still breeding in the Dudhwa reserve. She quite possibly is. Some tigers showed signs of being Siberian tiger hybrids. These tigers have got to die in this reserve to protect other reserves. Apparently Twycross Zoo maintained no breeding records and had behaved irresponsibly. It beggars b...