February 14, 2010 saw the start of the Chinese “Year of the Tiger”. The thing is, it isn’t. It will never be the Year of the Tiger until we have the right space and protection for them in the wild and a real understanding of the problems they face in captivity.
There will be those who recently read and were assured that there are 6000 captive tigers in China. That’s almost double the entire wild population! If we add that to the roughly 3,000 privately held Tigers in Texas alone, it really does seem like the tiger has nothing to worry about. There are tigers in other places too. It is not just Texas in the US, as it is estimated that there may be as many as 5,000 “American” tigers. All other countries also have their quota. Europe, South America, Asia, Australasia, and the Middle East all have Tigers. There are so many Tigers.
The tiger is threatened not only by habitat destruction and poaching, but also by irresponsible breeding in captivity. There is one species of tiger and six surviving subspecies. These are the Bengal tiger Panthera tigris tigris, the Amur tiger Panthera tigris altaica, the south china tiger Panthera tigris amoyensis, the Indochinese tiger Panthera tigris corbetti, the Sumatran tiger Panthera tigris sumatrae and the malay tiger Panthera tigris jacksoni.
Three other subspecies, the Javanese tiger Panthera tigris probeica, the Bali tiger Panthera tigris balica and the caspian tiger Panthera tigris virgata they have become extinct in the last sixty years.
Today, only about 3,200 tigers remain in the wild spread out in varying numbers across Malaysia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Russia, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia.
Within the respectable and good zoos of the world, there are sincere and genuine efforts to keep these subspecies separate. Each has its own herd book and the available gene pool is managed by genuine professionals who care about the long-term future of that species or subspecies. No one is fooling themselves into the idea that but a small number will ever be released in the wild, if at all, while the problems in the wild still persist. Zoos today are looking back at a hundred-year period in which we currently cannot predict the state of the planet.
Subspecies kept in captivity are instantly recognizable as tigers even to the novice eye. Place them in adjoining enclosures and subspecific differences will become apparent. These are animals that have been shaped by nature for many thousands of years. Time has removed the weak features. These are animals that have been naturally selected by nature to survive in their environment. At one extreme we have the small, dark-haired, short-haired Sumatran tiger. Panthera tigris sumatrae ideal for the dark tropical moist forests of Sumatra. In the other we have the large, light-colored, long-haired Amur tiger. Panthera tigris altaica which is adapted to the snowy wastelands of eastern Russia. They are what they are due to natural selection.
Within managed captive tiger populations, no money changes hands. Tigers move between collections for the consideration and well-being of the population as a whole. Breeding pairs are carefully selected. An unnatural selection made with an understanding of nature’s choice. Breeding is limited and the health and welfare of both the animals and the population are important. Parenting is one of the main considerations.
Outside of the renowned zoos of the world, we have the bad zoos and tiger farms that do not take into account the subspecies of tigers or any other animal. The only thing they really care about is having a tiger or tigers. They raise brother to sister to mother to child. They don’t mind crossing a Bengal Tiger Panthera tigris tigris with any other subspecies you may have on hand. No records are kept. The more puppies they can produce, the happier they will be. Nobody knows or cares about these types of collections. However, these places have the audacity to excuse their crimes and talk about conservation and reintroduction programs, while having no idea of either concept. The really sad thing is that in some countries the officials in charge of wildlife departments don’t get it either. There is a real danger that some of these animals could be released by people working with the assumption that since it has stripes, so is a tiger, so it should be fine. It is not.
No one in their right mind would release polar bears Ursus maritimus in the jungles of Malaysia or the sun bears of Malaysia Helarctos malayanus in the arctic wastelands. It would be just as crazy to consider releasing hybrids of the two in any setting. Obviously, they would not be suitable. The example may seem a bit extreme, but it’s not that far off what some of these disreputable collections are doing and talking about. They are even crossing Lions with Tigers (Ligers) and Tigers with Lions (Tigons). We know that these hybrids could be bred in captivity for over a hundred years. What are they trying to prove? Where the hell do they hope to release these animals?
Some argue that subspecific tiger crosses can introduce “hybrid vigor” into a population. The fact that renowned people have already done so in some cases does not justify it. It is so easy to regard such an act as genetic contamination and as a dilution of the necessary physical attributes that nature has taken eons to establish and perfect. Tigers are not ordinary peas Pisum sativum. This is not one of Mendel’s experiments with plants. These are live warm-blooded mammals that breathe.
Then we have that group of zoos that continue to raise white tigers. Undoubtedly beautiful, but often wrongly touted as an endangered rare species that it definitely isn’t. White tigers are completely genetically altered and most have defects like crossed eyes and the like. They then continue to promote these as rare or endangered. This would be a joke if it weren’t actually a blatant lie. There are probably as many White Tigers in captivity as there are wild normal colored Tigers in all of India. To top it all, they are almost all cross-breeds between the Bengal and Amur tigers. These animals will never be released into the wild by any competent authority.
There is a place for some captive white tigers because after all they did, they very rarely occur in the wild within India. A naturally produced genuine white tiger in the hands of a zoo that is actively involved in an approved and regulated breeding program would be valuable not just genetically but as an educational tool. White tigers, as they exist today, are nothing more than a commercial attraction to attract the public. Any other color would do well for the disreputable zoo as long as it is not natural.
The real threat to the world’s Tigers is not just the problems they face in the wild (although these should not be discounted because they are critically important) but the huge unregistered, unmanaged and genetically damaged populations kept in captivity on tiger farms and in zoos of the second and third class.
