The Tiger

NEWS AND VIEWS -ATTICA ZOOLOGICAL PARK, ATHENS GREECE: This is an astonishing variation on the classic cat dumping story. We know that not uncommonly people abandon their unwanted pet cats by dumping them outside cat rescue centres or sometimes, far more callously, in a rubbish dump somewhere, anywhere. In this instance, ABC News report that medics are fighting to save the life of a 3-month-old female white tiger cub after she was found in an appalling state in a rubbish bin outside the Attica Zoological Park by a cleaner on February 28, 2023. The rubbish bin is in a parking lot. White tiger cub abandoned outside Greek zoo in Athens. Image: Attica Zoological Park. The zoo's founder is dumbfounded. Jean-Jacques Leseur said: "It is the first time ever we had such an animal dumped outside our zoo. I mean, we had a number of cases of animals dumped, but usually these are abandoned pets; puppies, kittens, tortoises but a tiger? Never." Law enforcement is trying to identify the...

There was a time when American citizens were interested in the price of white tigers. That was before the enactment of the Big Cat Public Safety Act 2022 which very recently came into force. Big cats including of course, white tigers cannot be owned or possessed by private individuals in private zoos anymore in the USA.  Existing big cat owners can keep their tigers until they die but they can't then buy another one. Potential new owners are barred from buying. Accredited zoos can own them but the only reason why they want to own them is to entertain the public and make some dosh. There is not conservation value at all in white tigers as they are heavily inbred and extinct in the wild. In fact, they were extinct in the wild as long ago as 1951. A maharaja shot the last white tiger family but left one cub alive, Mohan (who was abused), from which the entire current world population of white tigers at zoos have been created. Horrible. A f***ing awful history of humankind's stupid...

When Mike Tyson was released from prison in 1995 after a three-year stretch, he was talked into buying a white Bengal tiger for around $65,000. In all he owned three white Bengal tigers over a period of time. He lived in Las Vegas at the time in between two houses and in one was a businessman who kept dogs. One day he was walking his Bengal tiger on a leash like a pet and the tiger saw the dogs. It jumped up onto his neighbour's property's wall to attack the dogs to eat them. The owner of the property saw this and Mike Tyson managed to pull the tiger down. Good old Mike used his innate strength to good effect. Mike Tyson with at pet white Bengal tiger in 1989. Credit: Getty - Contributor It seems that the property owner telephoned the ASPCA about it and they came around to Mike Tyson's home and told him that he was not allowed to keep the tiger in captivity. Clearly in Las Vegas you need a licence to keep a tiger. That isn't the case across the whole of the USA but it p...

Of course, the video is charming. We all love to see moms and their babies as there is nothing more charming. And when the mother is a beautiful white tiger cuddling and playing with her white cub the charm is magnified. It is about as charming as animals can get but what is the back story to white tigers? A charming picture of a white tiger mother and her offspring. A loving scene. The back story is not about love. You might know but then you might not. All the white tigers that you see in captivity are hugely inbred. They have to be because they all come from one tiger. Yes, one single tiger. That does not bode very well for genetic diversity. The best book on tigers in the world (probably) states that: "All white tigers in captivity are descendants of a white male cub captured in the forests of Rewa in Madhya Pradesh, India in 1951. The cub named Mohan was mated with a normal-coloured tigress, but the union produced three litters of normal-coloured cubs. When Monaghan was paire...

NEWS AND COMMENT: This is more than about a white tiger in a Ukrainian zoo but it comes down to the same thing; the utterly uncivilised manner in which humankind is behaving at the moment at the expense of vulnerable animals. I'm referring of course to Putin's invasion of Ukraine which has proved to be far more barbaric than anybody envisaged and which is causing the mass destruction of many animals.  I have recently written about the starving to death of 300 dogs in an animal shelter in Russian occupied Ukraine because they failed to care for those dogs while they were caged . Alexander Feldman the zoo's owner. Picture as per the credit in the image. The owner of a zoo in Kharkiv, Alexander Feldman, is telling the world that he is set to euthanise the animals that remain. This includes a white tiger, as mentioned, and lions and bears. Some of the animals have been evacuated such as kangaroos but some kangaroos have been killed. Some of the deer escaped to surrounding fores...

The well-known white tigers at zoos which are so popular with tourists and visitors are not albinos. Albinos have pure white coats and pink eyes. White tiger. Not an albino. Photo: Pixabay. The glamorous white coat is chalky-white, their stripes are chocolate coloured (a dilute version of the normal near black stripes), and their eyes are ice-blue. Not the appearance of an albino cat. This non-albino tiger coat is due to a pair of recessive genes. It is thought the genes emerged as recessive genes because of a mutation which occurred about 100 years ago (as at 2002). All the world's captive white tigers are descendants from one dazzlingly beautiful white cub spared the tiger hunter's bullet as he was captured in Madhya Pradesh, India in 1951. His name was Mohan and he was mated with a normal-coloured tigress. All the offspring were normal. The breeders forced the recessive gene to the surface by inbreeding Mohan with one of the cubs mentioned. This produced the result they w...

About 6,500 years ago the Chinese divided the sky into four parts in Chinese astrology. They are north, east, west, and south. Each section contains seven stars which look like images of four mythical creatures and Bai Hu is a white tiger in charge of the west of the sky. The white tiger is a symbol of loyalty, power, justice and bravery. It was used by the military in Chinese history such as on a flag and seal. It probably still is. Bai Hu mythical white tiger from Chinese mythology. Image: Pinterest. Bai Hu represents autumn and it was believed to be a reincarnation of the tiger star, Alpha, in the Milky Way. According to I Ching, the tiger symbolises Yin or evil and the dragon symbolises Yang or good.  It roughly corresponds with the prominent constellation of Orion that dominates the autumn and winter night sky. Fiona Sunquist in her book (with her husband Mel), Wild Cats of the World , writes that "the breath of the Tiger creates the wind and the breath of the dragon c...