View allAll Photos Tagged Strabismus
Portrait of Tommaso Inghirami is an oil painting by Italian artist Raphael. Painted ca. 1509, it exists in two copies, one of which is in display in the Palatina Gallery of Palazzo Pitti in Florence and the other in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Known for its realism and attention to detail, the image is reminiscent of works by Hans Holbein the Elder, by whom Raphael may have been influenced in its execution. Stylistically, it relates to Raphael's Portrait of Agnolo Doni, ca.1506, in what Claudio Strinati described in 1998 as its "merciless clarity."
The subject of the painting, Tommaso Inghirami, was a friend of Raphael's, a prelate nicknamed Phaedra following a skillful exhibition of Latin poetry improvisation during a performance of Seneca's Phaedra wherein he carried the title role. A popular orator and actor, Tommaso Inghirami had strabismus. According to 2005's Cambridge Companion to Raphael, the piece is "the first likeness into which Raphael introduced the concept of movement", in the twist of his body as he contemplates his composition. By means of this device, Raphael focused attention away from his subject's disfigurement
Greetings! I'm still alive. Long story, but I suffered a head injury in 2022 (because everything awful happened in 2022) that has affected my vision long term. I have 3 procedures on my eyes coming up this year. The last one will be invasive eye muscle surgery to correct strabismus (fancy term for double vision).
Until then, I won't be in SL. I cannot see properly. I'm only on my computer for things like taxes and vital things. SL, it turns out, it's not as vital as being as present as I can be for my family.
Meanwhile, I have my three cats and my very old dog, Farkus. I'm taking life a day at a time. My liver disease is stabilizing slowly. There have been good signs and then new things crop up. One thing that is tiring is having to explain "No, this was not caused by excessive drinking." I mean, alcoholism is a disease that can cause liver disease. I have an auto-immune disease that has caused liver disease. Why do we harshly judge people that do suffer from alcoholism in the first place, that those of us who got to the same place by another route feel defensive?
Anyway, enough blathering. Still alive, eyes suck, but I'm reasonably well.
Best wishes!
The Human Formerly Known as Athena
© Leanne Boulton, All Rights Reserved
Close-up candid eye contact street photography from Glasgow, Scotland. I loved the light and his hair caught in the breeze but didn't notice his strabismus until editing. For me it makes for a compelling image that draws you into the stories that this man could tell. Enjoy! The mark to his right in frame is not a dust fairy, it's actually a fly that I have caught just in the plane of focus - cool.
I've seen the movie last weekend with my family. Even I cherished no great expectations at first THIS character hit's it: Best sidekick in Disney movies for a long time... :) So I liked to make him out of the bricks... And yesss, he's stable, no tricks at all... ;) Enjoy!
Lethal strabismus. A summer afternoon of pencils and some digital effects.
<(°~°)>
Estrabismo letal. Tarde estival de lápices y un poco de digital y cual.
MUSEO ARQUOLÓGICO NACIONAL (Madrid, España)
Sección: Hispania romana
Material: Piedra caliza y mármol
Datación: Finales del siglo II
Origen: Aranjuez (Madrid)
Descripción: El mosaico representa al Genio del Año, Annus, una deidad que engendra, produce y conserva toda serie de gozos, protectora del ciclo de las estaciones y las cosechas. Divinidad tutelar, protege la casa y sus habitantes. La cornucopia es su principal atributo y simboliza la prosperidad.
210093
Elise Wearing a red sequined dresses,Mix of black and white jewel belt,with daring design of V collar,sexy and sassy.
MUSEO ARQUOLÓGICO NACIONAL (Madrid, España)
Sección: Hispania romana
Material: Piedra caliza y mármol
Datación: Finales del siglo II
Origen: Aranjuez (Madrid)
Descripción: El mosaico representa al Genio del Año, Annus, una deidad que engendra, produce y conserva toda serie de gozos, protectora del ciclo de las estaciones y las cosechas. Divinidad tutelar, protege la casa y sus habitantes. La cornucopia es su principal atributo y simboliza la prosperidad.
210089
Face to face with a Kazakh eagle hunter. His greyish brown eyes, facial hair, and aquiline nose gives away his central Asian stock. He is looking straight at the camera except he has a little bit of a strabismus so his right eye appears to be looking to his left.
"...but my friends call me P-u-u...*pause*
aww...you can call me Flo."
Oh yeah, right off the bat I bet you noticed Florence is a messy packer! hehehe :D She also likes surfing, skateboarding, and new adventures. She's had to stick up for herself a lot in life, she doesn't take any guff. I think she'll fit right in!
PH Pearse poses with other members of his family for this photograph taken in the early 1900s. The various characters are named in the link, but this is an unusual image in that it shows the family and Patrick’s penchant for showing his “best” side!
Have a happy Bloomsday!
Photographer: Willie Pearse
Collection: Republican Photograph Collection
Date: Circa 1910
NLI Ref: NPA PRP4
You can also view this image, and many thousands of others, on the NLI’s catalogue at catalogue.nli.ie
"You may be straight but you don't 'look it.'"
A postcard addressed on the other side to Mr. Oscar Donaven, Mt. Joy, Lancaster Co., Pa., and postmarked in Philadelphia in 1907.
This postcard features a punning illustration of an apoplectic fellow who doesn't "look straight" because he's cross-eyed, of course.
Mark Newgarden, a cartoonist who was one of the creators of the Garbage Pail Kids, used this card--with an added imitation fly pin on the guy's nose--for the cover of his book, Cheap Laffs: The Art of the Novelty Item (Harry N. Abrams, 2004). If you have the slightest interest in the origin and history of fake vomit, whoopee cushions, and joy buzzers, then you've got to track down a copy of this amazingly amusing book.
Collection:
Images from the History of Medicine (IHM)
Alternate Title(s):
Eye surgery
Publication:
Bethesda, MD : U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Health & Human Services, [2010]
Language(s):
French
Format:
Still image
Subject(s):
Rheumatic Diseases -- therapy
Constriction
Regional Blood Flow
Strabismus -- surgery
Genre(s):
Book Illustrations,
Pictorial Works
Abstract:
Illustration of two open books. Top book shows glass tubes and accompanying pumps (invented by V.T. Junod) designed to constrict the blood flow to the arms and legs as a cure for rheumatism. Facing page shows text in French. Bottom book illustration shows methods of operating on crossed eyes and excessive squinting. Traité, vol. 6, pl. 28, vol. 7, pl. D.
Related Title(s):
Hidden treasure and Is part of: Traité complet de l'anatomie de l'homme; See related catalog record: 61020970R
Extent:
1 online resource (1 image)
NLM Unique ID:
101596985
NLM Image ID:
A033102
Permanent Link:
Past 3 months were extremely stressful and busy, it was nice to have a moment of piece and few hours of good time. Don't have time to pick up my camera and shoot, but hopefully soon will have that chance. Finally had enough guts to do eye surgery on Thursday and fix inborn strabismus. Some things in life are scary, but what is even scarier is not to take chances when you can and should.
Close-up natural-light street double portrait (outdoor half-length portrait, seven-eighths view and sideways glance) of a young Vietnamese Flower H’mong hill-tribe beauty, carrying a nose-picking baby girl in an embroidered traditional baby sling on her back;
Coc Ly Tuesday Market, Lao Cai Province, Northern Vietnam.
More context:
Touring Markets in Northern Vietnam (photo blog),
Meeting the Vietnamese H'mong (photo blog),
Doubling Down on Doubles (photo blog).
Little did I know when I started writing this post that there were so many different terms for having a squint. Call it boss eyed, wall eyed or cross eyed but it's proper name is Strabismus. And this girl is a sufferer. But rather than get nervous and hide under her duvet whilst studiously avoiding your gaze all day she's gone the opposite route of flaunting it and emphasising it by painting two big crosses over her eyes so she truly is cross eyed. That's the spirit my dear. To hell with 'em all...
Cheers
id-iom
Title: Strabismus (or cross eyed and carefree to you and me)
Materials: Acrylic, spray paint, paint pen and charcoal
Size: A2
Please email if interested
When Waahib takes an order, three tables speak at once.
Strobist: AB800 with Softlighter II camera right. AB800 open behind backdrop of white faux suede. Triggered by Cybersync.
Date: July 2018
Location: Novara
ph: Giovanni Riccioni
model: Giovanni Riccioni
Strobe:
*Speedlight 430EX II Canon off camera at right of camera with octabox
*Speedlight 580EX II Canon at left of camera with umbrella (behind the subject)
* Trigger Pixel King Wireless E-TTL Flash for Canon
White Tiger or Bengal Tiger (Panthera tigris)
The white tiger is a pigmentation variant of the Bengal tiger, which is reported in the wild from time to time in States of India like Assam, Bengal, Bihar,Sunderbans and especially in the former State of Rewa.
Variation
The White Bengal tigers are distinctive for their color fur. According to the website, “Animal Corner,” the correct term to name the white tiger is Chinchilla albinistic. The white fur is due to the lack of pheomelanin pigment, which is found in Bengal tigers with orange color fur. When compared to Bengal tigers, the white Bengal tigers tend to grow faster and heavier than the orange Bengal tiger. They also tend to be somewhat bigger at birth, and as fully grown adults. White Bengal tigers are fully grown when they are 2–3 years of age. White male tigers reach weights of 200 to 230 kilograms and up to 3 meters in length. Similar to zebras, the white Bengal tiger’s stripes are like fingerprints, no two tigers have the same. Also, the stripes of the tiger are a pigmentation of the skin.
For a white Bengal tiger to be born, both parents must carry the unusual gene for white colouring, which, according to the website “Animal Corner,” only happens naturally about once in 10,000 births. As stated by Kailash Sankhala, the director of the New Delhi Zoo in the 1960s, “one of the functions of the white gene tiger may have been to keep a size gene in the population, in case it's ever needed." Dark-striped white individuals are well-documented in the Bengal tiger subspecies, also known as the Royal Bengal or Indian tiger (Panthera tigris tigris or P. t. bengalensis), and may also have occurred in captive Siberian tigers (Panthera tigris altaica)[citation needed], as well as having been reported historically in several other subspecies.
Currently, several hundred white tigers are in captivity worldwide, with about one hundred being found in India. Nevertheless, their population is on the increase. Nandankanan in the state of Odisha, India, is the host zoo for white tigers. In 1980, the first litter of white tigers were born to Deepak and Ganga, two normal tawny tigers. Subsequent litters of white tigers have been distributed to zoos both at home and abroad. Currently, Nandankanan is home to over 34 white tigers. Their unique white color fur has made them popular in entertainment showcasing exotic animals, and at zoos. German-American magicians Siegfried & Roy became famous for breeding and training two white tigers for their performances, referring to them as "royal white tigers," the white tiger's association with the Maharaja of Rewa. The first white Bengal tiger was found in India by royalty Maharaja Shri Martand Singh of Rewa. According to the website, “Animal Corner”, in 1948, Maharaja killed the white tigress leaving four cubs behind. Later, the cubs of the dead tigress were shot except for the white cub. It is believed that all white Bengal tigers are descendants of this cub.
White Siberian tigers
The existence of white Siberian tigers has not been scientifically documented, despite occasional unsubstantiated reports of sightings of white tigers in the regions where wild Siberian tigers live. It may be that the white mutation does not exist in the wild Siberian tiger population: no white Siberian tigers have been born in captivity, despite the fact that the subspecies has been extensively bred during the last few decades (with much outbreeding between the different Siberian lineages for purposes of conservation genetics); a recessive allele should occasionally turn up in a homozygous state during such breeding, and in this particular case yield white tigers from normally-colored parents, but no such animals have been reported.
The famous white Siberian tigers found in captivity are actually not pure Siberian tigers. They are instead the result of Siberian tigers breeding with Bengal tigers. The gene for white coating is quite common among Bengal tigers, but the natural birth of a white Bengal tiger is still a very rare occasion in the wild, where white tigers are not bred selectively.
The white tiger is not considered a tiger subspecies, but rather a hybrid mutant variant of the existing tiger subspecies. If a pure white Siberian tiger were to be born, it would therefore not be selectively bred within the tiger conservation programs. It would, however, probably still be selectively bred outside the program in an effort to create more white Siberian tigers. Due to the popularity of white tigers, they are used to attract visitors to zoos. White tigers are found in zoos in China commonly. White Tigers are very large. They can weigh up to 300 kg and reach more than 4 meters of length.
Stripeless white tigers and golden tabby tiger
An additional genetic condition can remove most of the striping of a white tiger, making the animal almost pure white. One such specimen was exhibited at Exeter Change in England in 1820, and described by Georges Cuvier as "A white variety of Tiger is sometimes seen, with the stripes very opaque, and not to be observed except in certain angles of light." Naturalist Richard Lydekker said that, "a white tiger, in which the fur was of a creamy tint, with the usual stripes faintly visible in certain parts, was exhibited at the old menagerie at Exeter Change about the year 1820." Hamilton Smith said, "A wholly white tiger, with the stripe-pattern visible only under reflected light, like the pattern of a white tabby cat, was exhibited in the Exeter Change Menagerie in 1820.", and John George Wood stated that, "a creamy white, with the ordinary tigerine stripes so faintly marked that they were only visible in certain lights." Edwin Henry Landseer also drew this tigress in 1824.
The modern strain of snow white tigers came from repeated brother–sister matings of Bhim and Sumita at Cincinnati Zoo. The gene involved may have come from a Siberian tiger, via their part-Siberian ancestor Tony. Continued inbreeding appears to have caused a recessive gene for stripelessness to show up. About one fourth of Bhim and Sumita's offspring were stripeless. Their striped white offspring, which have been sold to zoos around the world, may also carry the stripeless gene. Because Tony's genome is present in many white tiger pedigrees, the gene may also be present in other captive white tigers. As a result, stripeless white tigers have appeared in zoos as far afield as the Czech Republic (Liberec), Spain and Mexico. Stage magicians Siegfried & Roy were the first to attempt to selectively breed tigers for stripelessness; they owned snow-white Bengal tigers taken from Cincinnati Zoo (Tsumura, Mantra, Mirage and Akbar-Kabul) and Guadalajara, Mexico (Vishnu and Jahan), as well as a stripeless Siberian tiger called Apollo.
In 2004, a blue-eyed, stripeless white tiger was born in a wildlife refuge in Alicante, Spain. Its parents are normal orange Bengals. The cub was named Artico ("Arctic").
Stripeless white tigers were thought to be sterile until Siegfried & Roy's stripeless white tigress Sitarra, a daughter of Bhim and Sumita, gave birth. Another variation which came out of the white strains were unusually light-orange tigers called "golden tabby tigers". These are probably orange tigers which carry the stripeless white gene as a recessive. Some white tigers in India are very dark, between white and orange.
Genetics
A white tiger's pale coloration is due to the lack of the red and yellow pigments that normally produce the orange color. This had long been thought to be due to a mutation in the gene for the tyrosinase enzyme. A knockout mutation in this gene results in albinism, the inability to make either pheomelanin or eumelanin, while the consequence of a less severe mutation in the same gene is the cause of a selective loss of pheomelanin, the so-called Chinchilla trait. The white phenotype in tigers had been attributed to this Chinchilla mutation in tyrosinase, and some publications prior to the 1980s refer to it as an albino gene for this reason.[citation needed] However, genomic analysis has demonstrated instead that a mutation in the SLC45A2 gene is responsible. The resultant single amino acid substitution in this transport protein, by a mechanism yet to be determined, causes the elimination of pheomelanin expression seen in the white tiger. This is a recessive trait, meaning that it is only seen in individuals that are homozygous for this mutation. Inbreeding promotes recessive traits and has been used as a strategy to produce white tigers in captivity.
The stripe color varies due to the influence and interaction of other genes. Another genetic characteristic makes the stripes of the tiger very pale; white tigers of this type are called snow-white or "pure white". White tigers, Siamese cats, and Himalayan rabbits have enzymes in their fur which react to temperature, causing them to grow darker in the cold. A white tiger named Mohini was whiter than her relatives in the Bristol Zoo, who showed more cream tones. This may have been because she spent less time outdoors in the winter. White tigers produce a mutated form of tyrosinase, an enzyme used in the production of melanin, which only functions at certain temperatures, below 37 °C (99 °F). This is why Siamese cats and Himalayan rabbits are darker on their faces, ears, legs, and tails (the color points), where the cold penetrates more easily. This is called acromelanism, and other cats breeds derived from the Siamese, such as the Himalayan and the snowshoe cat, also exhibit the condition. Kailash Sankhala observed that white tigers were always whiter in Rewa State, even when they were born in New Delhi and returned there. "In spite of living in a dusty courtyard, they were always snow white." A weakened immune system is directly linked to reduced pigmentation in white tigers.
Genetic defects
Outside of India, inbred white tigers have been prone to crossed eyes, a condition known as strabismus, an example of which is "Clarence the cross-eyed lion", due to incorrectly routed visual pathways in the brains of white tigers. When stressed or confused, all white tigers cross their eyes. Strabismus is associated with white tigers of mixed Bengal x Siberian ancestry. The only pure-Bengal white tiger reported to be cross-eyed was Mohini's daughter Rewati. Strabismus is directly linked to the white gene and is not a separate consequence of inbreeding. The orange litter-mates of white tigers are not prone to strabismus. Siamese cats and albinos of every species which have been studied all exhibit the same visual pathway abnormality found in white tigers. Siamese cats are also sometimes cross-eyed, as are some albino ferrets. The visual pathway abnormality was first documented in white tigers in the brain of a white tiger called Moni after he died, although his eyes were of normal alignment. The abnormality is that there is a disruption in the optic chiasm. The examination of Moni's brain suggested the disruption is less severe in white tigers than it is in Siamese cats. Because of the visual pathway abnormality, by which some optic nerves are routed to the wrong side of the brain, white tigers have a problem with spatial orientation, and bump into things until they learn to compensate. Some tigers compensate by crossing their eyes. When the neurons pass from the retina to the brain and reach the optic chiasma, some cross and some do not, so that visual images are projected to the wrong hemisphere of the brain. White tigers cannot see as well as normal tigers and suffer from photophobia, like albinos.
Other genetic problems include shortened tendons of the forelegs, club foot, kidney problems, arched or crooked backbone and twisted neck. Reduced fertility and miscarriages, noted by ”tiger man” Kailash Sankhala in pure-Bengal white tigers were attributed to inbreeding depression. A condition known as "star-gazing" (the head and neck are raised almost straight up, as if the affected animal is gazing at the stars), which is associated with inbreeding in big cats, has also been reported in white tigers. Some white tigers born to North American lines have bulldog faces with a snub nose, jutting jaw, domed head and wide-set eyes with an indentation between the eyes. However, some of these traits may be linked to poor diet rather than inbreeding.
There was a 450 lb (200 kg) male cross-eyed white tiger at the Pana'ewa Rainforest Zoo in Hawaii, which was donated to the zoo by Las Vegas magician Dirk Arthur. There is a picture of a white tiger which appears to be cross-eyed on just one side in Siegfried & Roy's book Mastering The Impossible. A white tiger, named Scarlett O'Hara, who was Tony's sister, was cross-eyed only on the right side.
A male white tiger named Cheytan, a son of Bhim and Sumita born at the Cincinnati Zoo, died at the San Antonio Zoo in 1992 from anaesthesia complications during root canal therapy. It appears that white tigers also react strangely to anaesthesia. The best drug for immobilizing a tiger is CI 744, but a few tigers, white ones in particular, undergo a re-sedation effect 24–36 hours later. This is due to their inability to produce normal tyrosinase, a trait they share with albinos, according to zoo veterinarian David Taylor. He treated a pair of white tigers from the Cincinnati Zoo at Fritz Wurm's safari park in Stukenbrock, Germany, for salmonella poisoning, which reacted strangely to the anaesthesia.
Mohini was checked for Chédiak-Higashi syndrome in 1960, but the results were inconclusive. This condition is similar to albino mutations and causes bluish lightening of the fur color, crossed eyes, and prolonged bleeding after surgery. Also, in the event of an injury, the blood is slow to coagulate. This condition has been observed in domestic cats, but there has never been a case of a white tiger having Chédiak-Higashi syndrome. There has been a single case of a white tiger having central retinal degeneration, reported from the Milwaukee County Zoo, which could be related to reduced pigmentation in the eye. The white tiger in question was a male named Mota on loan from the Cincinnati Zoo.
There is a myth that white tigers have an 80% infant mortality rate. However, the infant mortality rate for white tigers is no higher than it is for normal orange tigers bred in captivity. Cincinnati Zoo director Ed Maruska said: "We have not experienced premature death among our white tigers. Forty-two animals born in our collection are still alive. Mohan, a large white tiger, died just short of his 20th birthday, an enviable age for a male of any subspecies, since most males live shorter captive lives. Premature deaths in other collections may be artifacts of captive environmental conditions...in 52 births we had four stillbirths, one of which was an unexplained loss. We lost two additional cubs from viral pneumonia, which is not excessive. Without data from non-inbred tiger lines, it is difficult to determine whether this number is high or low with any degree of accuracy."Ed Maruska also addressed the issue of deformities: "Other than a case of hip dysplasia that occurred in a male white tiger, we have not encountered any other body deformities or any physiological or neurological disorders. Some of these reported maladies in mutant tigers in other collections may be a direct result of inbreeding or improper rearing management of tigers generally."
Inbreeding and outcrossing
Because of the extreme rarity of the white tiger allele in the wild,[9] the breeding pool was limited to the small number of white tigers in captivity. According to Kailash Sankhala, the last white tiger ever seen in the wild was shot in 1958. Today there is a large number of white tigers in captivity. A white Amur tiger may have been born at Center Hill and has given rise to a strain of white Amur tigers. A man named Robert Baudy realized that his tigers had white genes when a tiger he sold to Marwell Zoo in England developed white spots, and bred them accordingly. The Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa Bay has four of these white Amur tigers, descended from Robert Baudy's stock.
It has also been possible to expand the white-gene pool by outcrossing white tigers with unrelated orange tigers and then using the cubs to produce more white tigers. The white tigers Ranjit, Bharat, Priya and Bhim were all outcrossed, in some instances to more than one tiger. Bharat was bred to an unrelated orange tiger named Jack from the San Francisco Zoo and had an orange daughter named Kanchana. Bharat and Priya were also bred with an unrelated orange tiger from Knoxville Zoo, and Ranjit was bred to this tiger's sister, also from Knoxville Zoo. Bhim fathered several litters with an unrelated orange tigress named Kimanthi at the Cincinnati Zoo. ankam Ranjeeth had several mates at the Omaha Zoo.
The last descendants of Bristol Zoo's white tigers were a group of orange tigers from outcrosses which were bought by a Pakistani senator and shipped to Pakistan. Rajiv, Pretoria Zoo's white tiger, who was born in the Cincinnati Zoo, was also outcrossed and sired at least two litters of orange cubs at Pretoria Zoo. Outcrossing is not necessarily done with the intent of producing more white cubs by resuming inbreeding further down the line.
Outcrossing is a way of bringing fresh blood into the white strain. The New Delhi Zoo loaned out white tigers to some of India's better zoos for outcrossing, and the government had to impose a whip to force zoos to return either the white tigers or their orange offspring.
Siegfried & Roy performed at least one outcross. In the mid-1980s they offered to work with the Indian government in the creation of a healthier strain of white tigers. The Indian government reportedly considered the offer; however, India had a moratorium on breeding white tigers after cubs were born at New Delhi Zoo with arched backs and clubbed feet, necessitating euthanasia. Siegfried & Roy have bred white tigers in collaboration with the Nashville Zoo.
Because of the inbreeding and resulting genetic defects the Association of Zoos and Aquariums barred member zoos from breeding white tigers, white lions and king cheetahs in a white paper adopted by the board of directors in July 2011. It is noteworthy that the first person to speak out against the displaying of white tigers was William G. Conway, General Director of the New York Zoological Society, which later became known as the Wildlife Conservation Society when he said, "White tigers are freaks. It's not the role of a zoo to show two headed calves and white tigers." He warned AZA in 1983 of the harm to the zoo's credibility in catering to the public's fascination with freaks, but went unheeded until 2008 when AZA issued a request to their members to stop breeding white tigers and then later in July 2011 when the AZA formally adopted that stance as policy. Conway was attacked by Ed Maruska of the Cincinnati Zoo for his observation, but in the end Conway's belief was validated.
A complete scan of the genome led to the discovery that the white tiger’s distinguishing characteristic arises from a single naturally occurring mutation, the substitution of one amino acid for another—valine for alanine—in the protein identified as SLC45A2. The implication of this discovery means that white tigers can be bred from any colored Bengal tiger pair possessing the unique but naturally occurring recessive gene.
Popular culture
White tigers appear frequently in literature, video games, television, and comic books. Such examples include the Swedish rock band Kent, which featured a white tiger on the cover of their best-selling album Vapen & ammunition in 2002. This was a tribute to the band's home town Eskilstuna, as the local zoo in town had white tigers from the Hawthorn Circus as its main attraction. The white tiger has also been featured in the video for the song "Human" by the popular American synth-rock band The Killers. White Tiger is also the name of an American glam metal band from the 1980s.
In the live action version of Disney's 101 Dalmatians, Cruella de Vil kills a white tiger for its fur.
- Seto Bagh (or White tiger in English) is a Nepali language novel by Diamond - Shumsher Rana about an encounter with a white tiger.
- Aravind Adiga's novel The White Tiger won the Man Booker Prize in 2008. The central character and narrator refers to himself as "The White Tiger". It was a nickname given to him as a child to denote that he was unique in the "jungle" (his hometown), that he was smarter than the others.
- Video games including white tigers include Zoo Tycoon, the Warcraft universe, and Perfect World International. White Tigers are featured as a wild, tamable "pet" companion in Guild Wars Factions. White tigers are also seen in Heroes of Might and Magic IV. The protector of the mystical world of Shangri-La in Far Cry 4 is a white tiger that allies with the protagonist to defeat demons.
- Both the Power Rangers and the Japanese Super Sentai series from which the Power Rangers series is based on, have used White Tiger themed mecha. A trained white tiger from the Bowmanville Zoo in Ontario, Canada, was used in the Animorphs TV series. A superhero named White Tiger appears in "The Justice Friends" on Dexter's Laboratory.
- Marvel Comics also publishes several superheroes who go by the name White Tiger. A white tiger named White Blaze is frequently shown in the anime Ronin Warriors.
- Tigatron from the animated TV series Transformers: Beast Wars is based on the white tiger. There have been at least 4 heroes in Marvel comics called "The White Tiger": two gained powers from a group of three mystic amulets that they possessed, one was actually a tigress evolved by the High Evolutionary, and one was given an artificial version of the "Black Panther's Heart Shaped Herb".
- Kylie Chan's 'Dark Heavens' series incorporates the four winds of Chinese mythology – including The White Tiger.
- In Hayate the Combat Butler, Tama; Nagi Sanzenin's pet tiger is a white tiger.
In 2013, a white tiger used for election campaign in Lahore, Pakistan died of dehydration
In Captivity
India
Nandankanan, in the Indian state of Odisha hosts 34 white tigers. White tigers were born to normal coloured parents in 1980, a unique event in the world. A unique white tiger safari was established in this Zoological Park on 1 October 1991.
Algeria
Parc de Ben Aknoun, is a zoo in the city of Algiers, which houses white tigers of a rare breed. Two females and a male, were brought on a flight from Gabon, in July 2014.
Portugal
Jardim Zoológico de Lisboa (the Zoologic Garden of Lisbon) is home to five white tigers, a male and female along with their cubs (one male and two females), all born in the zoo.
Trinidad
The Emperor Valley Zoo houses a male and female white tiger. On 9 January 2015 the female white bengal tiger named Rajasi gave birth to two cubs at the Emperor Valley Zoo.
Hungary
Two Bengal White Tigers where born in a zoo in January of 2015, in a zoo in Gyor.
[Credit: en.wikipedia.org/]
The white tiger or bleached tiger is a leucistic pigmentation variant of the mainland Asian tiger. It is reported in the wild from time to time in the Indian states of Madhya Pradesh, Assam, West Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, in the Sunderbans region and especially in the former State of Rewa. It has the typical black stripes of a tiger, but its coat is otherwise white or near-white and blue eyes.
Variation
The white Bengal tigers are distinctive due to the color of their fur. The white fur is caused by a lack of the pigment pheomelanin, which is found in Bengal tigers with orange color fur. When compared to Bengal tigers, the white Bengal tigers tend to grow faster and heavier than the orange Bengal tiger.[citation needed] They also tend to be somewhat bigger at birth, and as fully grown adults.[citation needed] White Bengal tigers are fully grown when they are 2–3 years of age. White male tigers reach weights of 200 to 230 kilograms (440 to 510 lb) and can grow up to 3 meters (9.8 ft) in length. As with all tigers, the white Bengal tiger's stripes are like fingerprints, with no two tigers having the same pattern. The stripes of the tiger are a pigmentation of the skin; if an individual were to be shaved, its distinctive coat pattern would still be visible.
For a white Bengal tiger to be born, both parents must carry the unusual gene for white colouring, which only happens naturally about once in 10,000 births. Dark-striped white individuals are well-documented in the Bengal tiger subspecies (Panthera tigris) as well as having been reported historically in several other subspecies. Currently, several hundred white tigers are in captivity worldwide, with about one hundred being found in India. Their unique white color fur has made them popular in entertainment showcasing exotic animals, and at zoos. Their rarity could be because the recessive allele is the result of a one-time mutation or because white tigers lack adequate camouflage, reducing their ability to stalk prey or avoid other predators. (Downes 2021)
Genetics
A white tiger's pale coloration is due to the lack of the red and yellow pheomelanin pigments that normally produce the orange coloration This had long been attributed to a mutation in the gene for the tyrosinase (TYR) enzyme. A knockout mutation in this gene results in albinism, the ability to make neither pheomelanin (red and yellow pigments) nor eumelanin (black and brown pigments), while a less severe mutation in the same gene in other mammals results in selective loss of pheomelanin, the so-called Chinchilla trait. The white phenotype in tigers had been attributed to such a Chinchilla mutation in tyrosinase, and in the past white tigers were sometimes referred to as 'partial albinos'. While whole genome sequencing determined that such a TYR mutation is responsible for the white lion leucistic variant, a normal TYR gene was found in both white tigers and snow leopards. Instead in white tigers a naturally-occurring point mutation in the SLC45A2 transport protein gene was found to underlie its pigmentation. The resultant single amino acid substitution introduces an alanine residue that protrudes into the transport protein's central passageway, apparently blocking it, and by a mechanism yet to be determined this prevents pheomelanin expression in the fur. Mutations in the same gene are known to result in 'cream' coloration in horses, and play a role in the paler skin of humans of European descent. This is a recessive trait, meaning that it is only seen in individuals that are homozygous for this mutation, and that while the progeny of white tigers will all be white, white tigers can be also bred from colored Bengal tiger pairs in which each possesses a single copy of the unique mutation. Inbreeding promotes recessive traits and has been used as a strategy to produce white tigers in captivity, but this has also resulted in a range of other genetic defects.
The stripe color varies due to the influence and interaction of other genes. Another genetic characteristic makes the stripes of the tiger very pale; white tigers of this type are called snow-white or "pure white". White tigers, Siamese cats, and Himalayan rabbits have enzymes in their fur which react to temperature, causing them to grow darker in the cold. A white tiger named Mohini was whiter than her relatives in the Bristol Zoo, who showed more cream tones. This may have been because she spent less time outdoors in the winter. Kailash Sankhala observed that white tigers were always whiter in Rewa State, even when they were born in New Delhi and returned there. "In spite of living in a dusty courtyard, they were always snow white." A weakened immune system is directly linked to reduced pigmentation in white tigers.
Stripeless tigers
An additional genetic condition can result in near-complete absence of stripes, making the tiger almost pure white. One such specimen was exhibited at Exeter Change in England in 1820, and described by Georges Cuvier as "A white variety of Tiger is sometimes seen, with the stripes very opaque, and not to be observed except in certain angles of light." Naturalist Richard Lydekker said that, "a white tiger, in which the fur was of a creamy tint, with the usual stripes faintly visible in certain parts, was exhibited at the old menagerie at Exeter Change about the year 1820." Hamilton Smith said, "A wholly white tiger, with the stripe-pattern visible only under reflected light, like the pattern of a white tabby cat, was exhibited in the Exeter Change Menagerie in 1820.", and John George Wood stated that, "a creamy white, with the ordinary tigerine stripes so faintly marked that they were only visible in certain lights." Edwin Henry Landseer also drew this tigress in 1824.
The modern strain of snow white tigers came from repeated brother–sister matings of Bhim and Sumita at Cincinnati Zoo. The gene involved may have come from a Siberian tiger, their part-Siberian ancestor Tony. Continued inbreeding appears to have caused a recessive gene to become homozygous and produce the stripeless phenotype. About one fourth of Bhim and Sumita's offspring were stripeless. Their striped white offspring, which have been sold to zoos around the world, may also carry the gene for the stripeless trait. Because Tony's genome is present in many white tiger pedigrees, the gene may also be present in other captive white tigers. As a result, stripeless white tigers have appeared in zoos as far afield as the Czech Republic (Liberec), Spain and Mexico. Stage magicians Siegfried & Roy were the first to attempt to selectively breed for stripeless tigers; they owned snow-white Bengal tigers taken from Cincinnati Zoo (Tsumura, Mantra, Mirage and Akbar-Kabul) and Guadalajara, Mexico (Vishnu and Jahan), as well as a stripeless Siberian tiger called Apollo.
In 2004, a blue-eyed, stripeless white tiger was born in a wildlife refuge in Alicante, Spain. Its parents are normal orange Bengals. The cub was named "Artico" ("Arctic").
Defects
Outside of India, inbred white tigers have been prone to crossed eyes, a condition known as strabismus, due to incorrectly routed visual pathways in the brains of white tigers. When stressed or confused, all white tigers cross their eyes. Strabismus is associated with white tigers of mixed Bengal and Siberian ancestry. The only pure-Bengal white tiger reported to be cross-eyed was Mohini's daughter Rewati. Strabismus is directly linked to the white gene and is not a separate consequence of inbreeding.
The orange litter-mates of white tigers are not prone to strabismus. Siamese cats and albinos of every species which have been studied all exhibit the same visual pathway abnormality found in white tigers. Siamese cats are also sometimes cross-eyed, as are some albino ferrets. The visual pathway abnormality was first documented in white tigers in the brain of a white tiger called Moni after he died, although his eyes were of normal alignment. The abnormality is that there is a disruption in the optic chiasm. The examination of Moni's brain suggested the disruption is less severe in white tigers than it is in Siamese cats. Because of the visual pathway abnormality, by which some optic nerves are routed to the wrong side of the brain, white tigers have a problem with spatial orientation, and bump into things until they learn to compensate. Some tigers compensate by crossing their eyes. When the neurons pass from the retina to the brain and reach the optic chiasma, some cross and some do not, so that visual images are projected to the wrong hemisphere of the brain. White tigers cannot see as well as normal tigers and suffer from photophobia, like albinos.
Other genetic problems include shortened tendons of the forelegs, club foot, kidney problems, arched or crooked backbone and twisted neck. Reduced fertility and miscarriages, noted by "tiger man" Kailash Sankhala in pure-Bengal white tigers, were attributed to inbreeding depression. A condition known as "star-gazing" (the head and neck are raised almost straight up, as if the affected animal is gazing at the stars), which is associated with inbreeding in big cats, has also been reported in white tigers.
There was a 200 kg (450 lb) male cross-eyed white tiger at the Pana'ewa Rainforest Zoo in Hawaii, which was donated to the zoo by Las Vegas magician Dirk Arthur. There is a picture of a white tiger which appears to be cross-eyed on just one side in the book Siegfried and Roy: Mastering the Impossible. A white tiger, named Scarlett O'Hara, who was Tony's sister, was cross-eyed only on the right side.
A male tiger named 'Cheytan', a son of Bhim and Sumita who was born at the Cincinnati Zoo, died at the San Antonio Zoo in 1992, from anaesthesia complications during root canal therapy. It appears that white tigers also react strangely to anaesthesia. The best drug for immobilizing a tiger is CI 744, but a few tigers, white ones in particular, undergo a re-sedation effect 24–36 hours later. This is due to their inability to produce normal tyrosinase, a trait they share with albinos, according to zoo veterinarian David Taylor. He treated a pair of white tigers from the Cincinnati Zoo at Fritz Wurm's safari park in Stukenbrock, Germany, for salmonella poisoning, which reacted strangely to the anaesthesia.
Mohini was checked for Chédiak–Higashi syndrome in 1960, but the results were inconclusive. This condition is similar to albino mutations and causes bluish lightening of the fur color, crossed eyes, and prolonged bleeding after surgery. Also, in the event of an injury, the blood is slow to coagulate. This condition has been observed in domestic cats, but there has never been a case of a white tiger having Chédiak–Higashi syndrome. There has been a single case of a white tiger having central retinal degeneration, reported from the Milwaukee County Zoo, which could be related to reduced pigmentation in the eye. The white tiger in question was a male named Mota on loan from the Cincinnati Zoo.
There is a myth that white tigers have an 80% infant mortality rate. However, the infant mortality rate for white tigers is no higher than it is for normal orange tigers bred in captivity. Cincinnati Zoo director Ed Maruska said:
"We have not experienced premature death among our white tigers. Forty-two animals born in our collection are still alive. Mohan, a large white tiger, died just short of his 20th birthday, an enviable age for a male of any subspecies, since most males live shorter captive lives. Premature deaths in other collections may be artifacts of captive environmental conditions...in 52 births we had four stillbirths, one of which was an unexplained loss. We lost two additional cubs from viral pneumonia, which is not excessive. Without data from non-inbred tiger lines, it is difficult to determine whether this number is high or low with any degree of accuracy."
Ed Maruska also addressed the issue of deformities:
"Other than a case of hip dysplasia that occurred in a male white tiger, we have not encountered any other body deformities or any physiological or neurological disorders. Some of these reported maladies in mutant tigers in other collections may be a direct result of inbreeding or improper rearing management of tigers generally."
Inbreeding and outcrossing
Because of the extreme rarity of the white tiger allele in the wild, the breeding pool was limited to the small number of white tigers in captivity. According to Kailash Sankhala, the last white tiger ever seen in the wild was shot in 1958. Today there is a large number of white tigers in captivity. A white Amur tiger may have been born at Center Hill and has given rise to a strain of white Amur tigers. A man named Robert Baudy realized that his tigers had white genes when a tiger he sold to Marwell Zoo in England developed white spots, and bred them accordingly. The Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa Bay had four of these white Amur tigers, descended from Robert Baudy's stock.
It has also been possible to expand the white-gene pool by outcrossing white tigers with unrelated orange tigers and then using the cubs to produce more white tigers. The white tigers Ranjit, Bharat, Priya and Bhim were all outcrossed, in some instances to more than one tiger. Bharat was bred to an unrelated orange tiger named Jack from the San Francisco Zoo and had an orange daughter named Kanchana. Bharat and Priya were also bred with an unrelated orange tiger from Knoxville Zoo, and Ranjit was bred to this tiger's sister, also from Knoxville Zoo. Bhim fathered several litters with an unrelated orange tigress named Kimanthi at the Cincinnati Zoo. ankam Ranjeeth had several mates at the Omaha Zoo.
The last descendants of Bristol Zoo's white tigers were a group of orange tigers from outcrosses which were bought by a Pakistani senator and shipped to Pakistan. Rajiv, Pretoria Zoo's white tiger, who was born in the Cincinnati Zoo, was also outcrossed and sired at least two litters of orange cubs at Pretoria Zoo. Outcrossing is not necessarily done with the intent of producing more white cubs by resuming inbreeding further down the line. Outcrossing is a way of bringing fresh blood into the white strain. The New Delhi Zoo loaned out white tigers to some of India's better zoos for outcrossing, and the government had to impose a whip to force zoos to return either the white tigers or their orange offspring.
Siegfried & Roy performed at least one outcross. In the mid-1980s they offered to work with the Indian government in the creation of a healthier strain of white tigers. The Indian government reportedly considered the offer; however, India had a moratorium on breeding white tigers after cubs were born at New Delhi Zoo with arched backs and clubbed feet, necessitating euthanasia. Siegfried & Roy have bred white tigers in collaboration with the Nashville Zoo.
To better preserve genetic diversity and avoid genetic defects, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums barred member zoos from intentionally breeding to produce white tigers, white lions, or king cheetahs in a white paper adopted by the board of directors in July 2011. The paper explains that selecting for or against any particular allele would result in a loss of genetic diversity. Instead, the alleles should be maintained at their natural frequencies. Inbreeding to produce abnormal appearances can also produce congenital defects that impact health and welfare. Sometimes the traits themselves can cause problems, such as albinism's visual and neural effects. Additionally, animals with an abnormal appearance do not serve as well as ambassadors for their species in the zoos' mission to educate the public.
The white tiger or bleached tiger is a leucistic pigmentation variant of the mainland Asian tiger. It is reported in the wild from time to time in the Indian states of Madhya Pradesh, Assam, West Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, in the Sunderbans region and especially in the former State of Rewa. It has the typical black stripes of a tiger, but its coat is otherwise white or near-white and blue eyes.
Variation
The white Bengal tigers are distinctive due to the color of their fur. The white fur is caused by a lack of the pigment pheomelanin, which is found in Bengal tigers with orange color fur. When compared to Bengal tigers, the white Bengal tigers tend to grow faster and heavier than the orange Bengal tiger.[citation needed] They also tend to be somewhat bigger at birth, and as fully grown adults.[citation needed] White Bengal tigers are fully grown when they are 2–3 years of age. White male tigers reach weights of 200 to 230 kilograms (440 to 510 lb) and can grow up to 3 meters (9.8 ft) in length. As with all tigers, the white Bengal tiger's stripes are like fingerprints, with no two tigers having the same pattern. The stripes of the tiger are a pigmentation of the skin; if an individual were to be shaved, its distinctive coat pattern would still be visible.
For a white Bengal tiger to be born, both parents must carry the unusual gene for white colouring, which only happens naturally about once in 10,000 births. Dark-striped white individuals are well-documented in the Bengal tiger subspecies (Panthera tigris) as well as having been reported historically in several other subspecies. Currently, several hundred white tigers are in captivity worldwide, with about one hundred being found in India. Their unique white color fur has made them popular in entertainment showcasing exotic animals, and at zoos. Their rarity could be because the recessive allele is the result of a one-time mutation or because white tigers lack adequate camouflage, reducing their ability to stalk prey or avoid other predators. (Downes 2021)
Genetics
A white tiger's pale coloration is due to the lack of the red and yellow pheomelanin pigments that normally produce the orange coloration This had long been attributed to a mutation in the gene for the tyrosinase (TYR) enzyme. A knockout mutation in this gene results in albinism, the ability to make neither pheomelanin (red and yellow pigments) nor eumelanin (black and brown pigments), while a less severe mutation in the same gene in other mammals results in selective loss of pheomelanin, the so-called Chinchilla trait. The white phenotype in tigers had been attributed to such a Chinchilla mutation in tyrosinase, and in the past white tigers were sometimes referred to as 'partial albinos'. While whole genome sequencing determined that such a TYR mutation is responsible for the white lion leucistic variant, a normal TYR gene was found in both white tigers and snow leopards. Instead in white tigers a naturally-occurring point mutation in the SLC45A2 transport protein gene was found to underlie its pigmentation. The resultant single amino acid substitution introduces an alanine residue that protrudes into the transport protein's central passageway, apparently blocking it, and by a mechanism yet to be determined this prevents pheomelanin expression in the fur. Mutations in the same gene are known to result in 'cream' coloration in horses, and play a role in the paler skin of humans of European descent. This is a recessive trait, meaning that it is only seen in individuals that are homozygous for this mutation, and that while the progeny of white tigers will all be white, white tigers can be also bred from colored Bengal tiger pairs in which each possesses a single copy of the unique mutation. Inbreeding promotes recessive traits and has been used as a strategy to produce white tigers in captivity, but this has also resulted in a range of other genetic defects.
The stripe color varies due to the influence and interaction of other genes. Another genetic characteristic makes the stripes of the tiger very pale; white tigers of this type are called snow-white or "pure white". White tigers, Siamese cats, and Himalayan rabbits have enzymes in their fur which react to temperature, causing them to grow darker in the cold. A white tiger named Mohini was whiter than her relatives in the Bristol Zoo, who showed more cream tones. This may have been because she spent less time outdoors in the winter. Kailash Sankhala observed that white tigers were always whiter in Rewa State, even when they were born in New Delhi and returned there. "In spite of living in a dusty courtyard, they were always snow white." A weakened immune system is directly linked to reduced pigmentation in white tigers.
Stripeless tigers
An additional genetic condition can result in near-complete absence of stripes, making the tiger almost pure white. One such specimen was exhibited at Exeter Change in England in 1820, and described by Georges Cuvier as "A white variety of Tiger is sometimes seen, with the stripes very opaque, and not to be observed except in certain angles of light." Naturalist Richard Lydekker said that, "a white tiger, in which the fur was of a creamy tint, with the usual stripes faintly visible in certain parts, was exhibited at the old menagerie at Exeter Change about the year 1820." Hamilton Smith said, "A wholly white tiger, with the stripe-pattern visible only under reflected light, like the pattern of a white tabby cat, was exhibited in the Exeter Change Menagerie in 1820.", and John George Wood stated that, "a creamy white, with the ordinary tigerine stripes so faintly marked that they were only visible in certain lights." Edwin Henry Landseer also drew this tigress in 1824.
The modern strain of snow white tigers came from repeated brother–sister matings of Bhim and Sumita at Cincinnati Zoo. The gene involved may have come from a Siberian tiger, their part-Siberian ancestor Tony. Continued inbreeding appears to have caused a recessive gene to become homozygous and produce the stripeless phenotype. About one fourth of Bhim and Sumita's offspring were stripeless. Their striped white offspring, which have been sold to zoos around the world, may also carry the gene for the stripeless trait. Because Tony's genome is present in many white tiger pedigrees, the gene may also be present in other captive white tigers. As a result, stripeless white tigers have appeared in zoos as far afield as the Czech Republic (Liberec), Spain and Mexico. Stage magicians Siegfried & Roy were the first to attempt to selectively breed for stripeless tigers; they owned snow-white Bengal tigers taken from Cincinnati Zoo (Tsumura, Mantra, Mirage and Akbar-Kabul) and Guadalajara, Mexico (Vishnu and Jahan), as well as a stripeless Siberian tiger called Apollo.
In 2004, a blue-eyed, stripeless white tiger was born in a wildlife refuge in Alicante, Spain. Its parents are normal orange Bengals. The cub was named "Artico" ("Arctic").
Defects
Outside of India, inbred white tigers have been prone to crossed eyes, a condition known as strabismus, due to incorrectly routed visual pathways in the brains of white tigers. When stressed or confused, all white tigers cross their eyes. Strabismus is associated with white tigers of mixed Bengal and Siberian ancestry. The only pure-Bengal white tiger reported to be cross-eyed was Mohini's daughter Rewati. Strabismus is directly linked to the white gene and is not a separate consequence of inbreeding.
The orange litter-mates of white tigers are not prone to strabismus. Siamese cats and albinos of every species which have been studied all exhibit the same visual pathway abnormality found in white tigers. Siamese cats are also sometimes cross-eyed, as are some albino ferrets. The visual pathway abnormality was first documented in white tigers in the brain of a white tiger called Moni after he died, although his eyes were of normal alignment. The abnormality is that there is a disruption in the optic chiasm. The examination of Moni's brain suggested the disruption is less severe in white tigers than it is in Siamese cats. Because of the visual pathway abnormality, by which some optic nerves are routed to the wrong side of the brain, white tigers have a problem with spatial orientation, and bump into things until they learn to compensate. Some tigers compensate by crossing their eyes. When the neurons pass from the retina to the brain and reach the optic chiasma, some cross and some do not, so that visual images are projected to the wrong hemisphere of the brain. White tigers cannot see as well as normal tigers and suffer from photophobia, like albinos.
Other genetic problems include shortened tendons of the forelegs, club foot, kidney problems, arched or crooked backbone and twisted neck. Reduced fertility and miscarriages, noted by "tiger man" Kailash Sankhala in pure-Bengal white tigers, were attributed to inbreeding depression. A condition known as "star-gazing" (the head and neck are raised almost straight up, as if the affected animal is gazing at the stars), which is associated with inbreeding in big cats, has also been reported in white tigers.
There was a 200 kg (450 lb) male cross-eyed white tiger at the Pana'ewa Rainforest Zoo in Hawaii, which was donated to the zoo by Las Vegas magician Dirk Arthur. There is a picture of a white tiger which appears to be cross-eyed on just one side in the book Siegfried and Roy: Mastering the Impossible. A white tiger, named Scarlett O'Hara, who was Tony's sister, was cross-eyed only on the right side.
A male tiger named 'Cheytan', a son of Bhim and Sumita who was born at the Cincinnati Zoo, died at the San Antonio Zoo in 1992, from anaesthesia complications during root canal therapy. It appears that white tigers also react strangely to anaesthesia. The best drug for immobilizing a tiger is CI 744, but a few tigers, white ones in particular, undergo a re-sedation effect 24–36 hours later. This is due to their inability to produce normal tyrosinase, a trait they share with albinos, according to zoo veterinarian David Taylor. He treated a pair of white tigers from the Cincinnati Zoo at Fritz Wurm's safari park in Stukenbrock, Germany, for salmonella poisoning, which reacted strangely to the anaesthesia.
Mohini was checked for Chédiak–Higashi syndrome in 1960, but the results were inconclusive. This condition is similar to albino mutations and causes bluish lightening of the fur color, crossed eyes, and prolonged bleeding after surgery. Also, in the event of an injury, the blood is slow to coagulate. This condition has been observed in domestic cats, but there has never been a case of a white tiger having Chédiak–Higashi syndrome. There has been a single case of a white tiger having central retinal degeneration, reported from the Milwaukee County Zoo, which could be related to reduced pigmentation in the eye. The white tiger in question was a male named Mota on loan from the Cincinnati Zoo.
There is a myth that white tigers have an 80% infant mortality rate. However, the infant mortality rate for white tigers is no higher than it is for normal orange tigers bred in captivity. Cincinnati Zoo director Ed Maruska said:
"We have not experienced premature death among our white tigers. Forty-two animals born in our collection are still alive. Mohan, a large white tiger, died just short of his 20th birthday, an enviable age for a male of any subspecies, since most males live shorter captive lives. Premature deaths in other collections may be artifacts of captive environmental conditions...in 52 births we had four stillbirths, one of which was an unexplained loss. We lost two additional cubs from viral pneumonia, which is not excessive. Without data from non-inbred tiger lines, it is difficult to determine whether this number is high or low with any degree of accuracy."
Ed Maruska also addressed the issue of deformities:
"Other than a case of hip dysplasia that occurred in a male white tiger, we have not encountered any other body deformities or any physiological or neurological disorders. Some of these reported maladies in mutant tigers in other collections may be a direct result of inbreeding or improper rearing management of tigers generally."
Inbreeding and outcrossing
Because of the extreme rarity of the white tiger allele in the wild, the breeding pool was limited to the small number of white tigers in captivity. According to Kailash Sankhala, the last white tiger ever seen in the wild was shot in 1958. Today there is a large number of white tigers in captivity. A white Amur tiger may have been born at Center Hill and has given rise to a strain of white Amur tigers. A man named Robert Baudy realized that his tigers had white genes when a tiger he sold to Marwell Zoo in England developed white spots, and bred them accordingly. The Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa Bay had four of these white Amur tigers, descended from Robert Baudy's stock.
It has also been possible to expand the white-gene pool by outcrossing white tigers with unrelated orange tigers and then using the cubs to produce more white tigers. The white tigers Ranjit, Bharat, Priya and Bhim were all outcrossed, in some instances to more than one tiger. Bharat was bred to an unrelated orange tiger named Jack from the San Francisco Zoo and had an orange daughter named Kanchana. Bharat and Priya were also bred with an unrelated orange tiger from Knoxville Zoo, and Ranjit was bred to this tiger's sister, also from Knoxville Zoo. Bhim fathered several litters with an unrelated orange tigress named Kimanthi at the Cincinnati Zoo. ankam Ranjeeth had several mates at the Omaha Zoo.
The last descendants of Bristol Zoo's white tigers were a group of orange tigers from outcrosses which were bought by a Pakistani senator and shipped to Pakistan. Rajiv, Pretoria Zoo's white tiger, who was born in the Cincinnati Zoo, was also outcrossed and sired at least two litters of orange cubs at Pretoria Zoo. Outcrossing is not necessarily done with the intent of producing more white cubs by resuming inbreeding further down the line. Outcrossing is a way of bringing fresh blood into the white strain. The New Delhi Zoo loaned out white tigers to some of India's better zoos for outcrossing, and the government had to impose a whip to force zoos to return either the white tigers or their orange offspring.
Siegfried & Roy performed at least one outcross. In the mid-1980s they offered to work with the Indian government in the creation of a healthier strain of white tigers. The Indian government reportedly considered the offer; however, India had a moratorium on breeding white tigers after cubs were born at New Delhi Zoo with arched backs and clubbed feet, necessitating euthanasia. Siegfried & Roy have bred white tigers in collaboration with the Nashville Zoo.
To better preserve genetic diversity and avoid genetic defects, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums barred member zoos from intentionally breeding to produce white tigers, white lions, or king cheetahs in a white paper adopted by the board of directors in July 2011. The paper explains that selecting for or against any particular allele would result in a loss of genetic diversity. Instead, the alleles should be maintained at their natural frequencies. Inbreeding to produce abnormal appearances can also produce congenital defects that impact health and welfare. Sometimes the traits themselves can cause problems, such as albinism's visual and neural effects. Additionally, animals with an abnormal appearance do not serve as well as ambassadors for their species in the zoos' mission to educate the public.
Two little girls sit side by side on chairs holding hands. I know they are sisters because they wear matching dresses. The older sister has longer sleeves than the younger. She has a hat on her lap while the younger sister holds a large bouquet of mixed flowers. The most striking thing about them is their eyes. Because the daguerreotype was sensitive to blue light, blue eyes photograph very light. In addition the younger sister may have strabismus or lazy eye. Her very light eyes make it hard to say but in high magnification it appears that her eyes so not look in the same direction.
We plan to remove the glass and clean or replace it soon.
Candid shot, Tromso Norway.
Squint, means to look with the eyes partly closed. It may also refer to:
Squint, a commonly used alternative name for the medical condition, strabismus.
or
Squint, an alternative name for a hagioscope, in architecture.
A hagioscope or squint, in architecture, is an opening through the wall of a church in an oblique direction, to enable the worshippers in the transepts or other parts of the church, from which the altar was not visible, to see the elevation of the host.
Hagioscopes were also sometimes known as "leper windows" wherein a squint was made in an external wall so that lepers and other non-desirables could see the service without coming into contact with the rest of the populace.
Close-up natural-light street portrait (outdoor head shot, full-face view) of a squinting, middle-aged Indian man (right eye deviated outward) with a pencil moustache and henna-dyed orange hair;
Amritsar, Punjab, India.
More context:
Dyeing with Dignity and Henna (photo blog).
Have you ever seen me? Most of you never. You will not find photos of me. I don't allow anyone to take some, i never posted one where you can see both of my eyes.
Being on photos takes away the last bit of control, the last chance to hide my eyes.
Within seconds nearly everyone gives me that mark "disabled person". It just needs a look at my eyes. From that moment on i get prejudiced and treated differently. Often it feels like i get sorted out. I get underestimated all the time, some people even think i am mentally disabled, just because of my eyes. Even Doctors and teachers did that, some close people too. I have to prove them wrong before i get taken seriously, if i get the chance to do that. I have experienced all kind of different reactions.
Als child i developed strategies to trick you into thinking i can see like everyone else. I memorize things, act, play around and always try to behave and look as normal as possible. I never asked for help, prefered to reject it, even if it means i'm out of the game. I passed school that way, with good grades.
I avoid eye-contact at all cost. For more than 36 years, before i got my contact-lenses, i didn't see good enough to look into your eyes or to read your facial expressions, not at a normal distance. So why the hell should i give you the chance to look at my crossed and nervously shaking eyes?
I look down and into a different direction. You must think i'm not interested in you or just bored. But the real reason behind this is, i am ashamed and afraid to give you a look at me. When you try to make eye-contact i get nervous and my eyes begin to "dance" even more, Nystagmus 2.0.
As teenager i "perfected" my strategies. That means i avoided more and more situations, i feared them. I started to hide myself completely. A while ago i realized i am living in a bubble. I had no real life to speak of, no goals, no reason to get out. I made myself a "disabled person". My old behavior was wrong, i failed. I just gave up and escaped into isolation.
I had a wakeup-call, another one. Tough questions have been asked, stuff i tried to ban from my head. It is great to have the support of such a wonderful friend.
This is part of my answer to her, intentional made public.
I will change that, i will stop hiding. And i am starting today with posting a first little selfie. One small step.
It's not a great picture, but i want to post something before i finally get an answer to a question that bugs me forever: Is a strabismus and nystagmus-surgery possible? Can i ever get rid of that mark? I will know more about this on monday. I finally have an appointment.
P.S.: Ironically all what was needed to get this started, was something i fear so much: eye-contact. But that's a different story. ;)
===== Español =====
Esta es la primera vez que tomo una foto del proyecto usando mis lentes. Muchos no saben que no veo bien de lejos (y ahora ni de cerca) por lo cual consideré prudente no evitar más una foto de este estilo.
Cuando era pequeña sufria de estravismo (si... era virola) y toda mi niñez recibía sobrenombres como "cuatro ojos(pepas)", "chilindrina(porque usaba 2 colitas)" e incluso "viro"(de virola). Cuando tuve el reencuentro con mis compañeros que siempre me insultaban... fue evidente que había cambiado mucho, ya que no me insultaron más pese a que aún uso lentes cuando me canso :D
Gimp: Nuevo fondo, un poco de contraste para los bordes.
===== English =====
This is the first time that I take a picture for this project, while using my glasses. A lot of people don't know that I can't perfectly see far from things (and lately, not even being close) that's why I consider a good idea not to avoid pictures like this again.
When I was younger, I suffered strabismus (yeah I was crossed-eyes) and during all my childhood I got nicknames suck as "four eyed", "chilindrina" ("el chavo" character reference) because I used a pigtail on each side and even "viro" (from "virola" that means cross-eyed in spanish). When we had a homecoming with my former classmates who always used to tease me, it was clear that I had change a lot, even though I still use glasses when my eyes get sore or tired.
Gimp: new background and a little contrast to borders.
So I have to wear these new glasses - not because I have imperfect vision... but because I have a strabismus... or lazy (muscle in) eye. Apparently there are prisms in the glasses that somehow help to train the lazy eye back to normal. It's taking a while to get used to them. I hope it's not a permanent thing.
Autor: Society of Gentlemen
Descripción bibliográfica: A new and complete dictionary of arts and sciences : comprehending all the branches of useful knowledge, ... Illustrated with above three hundred copper-plates, ... The whole extracted from the best authors in all languages / By a society of gentlemen. - The second edition, with many additions, and other improvements. - London : printed for W. Owen, 1763-64. - 4 v. (1064,1061-3506 p.), il.: lám. ; 8º
Notas: Grab. calc. representando a Minerva: "S. Wale invt. et delin., C. Grignion sculp."
-Localización: fama.us.es/record=b2656185~S5*spi
Vea la ilustración en su contexto
The White Tiger Fraud
Did you know the only way to produce a white tiger is through severe inbreeding of brother to sister, father to daughter and mother to son?
Did you know that there is no such species as a Royal White Bengal Tiger?
If you didn't know that, don't feel bad, you were deceived just like millions of others. Read on to learn the truth about white tigers, white lions, tabby tigers and other genetic aberrations.
Over the years many people have asked us to take white tigers off their hands, but in every case it was only so they could breed more babies to use, so we declined. For years we have railed against supporting facilities that breed and exhibit white tigers because of the abuse involved in producing them. White Tigers can ONLY exist in captivity by continual inbreeding, such as father to daughter, brother to sister, mother to son and so forth. The white lions and golden tabby tigers are merely a product of this practice of inbreeding for white coats as well and are not being bred for any sort of conservation program either. ALL white tigers are cross eyed, whether it shows or not, because the gene that causes the white coat always causes the optic nerve to be wired to the wrong side of the brain. That is why white tigers are such a favorite of the tiger-tamer-wanabees; they are far more dependant upon their masters. (See genetics and time line of the inbreeding below)
The myth of the Rare White Bengal Tiger was an illusion meant to deceive the public into thinking that these cats were endangered and being preserved for future generations. The truth of the matter is that they aren’t even pure Bengal tigers, but rather are all the offspring of an original Siberian / Bengal cross breeding. The inbreeding results in many defects, early deaths, still births and, as could be expected, the cats are not very bright which is why they are preferred for entertainment purposes.
To quote from Dr. Ron Tilson, Conservation Director of the Minnesota Zoo and manager of the world renown Tiger Species Survival Plan, "The white tiger controversy among zoos is a small part ethics and a large part economics. The tiger Species Survival Plan has condemned breeding white tigers because of their mixed ancestry, most have been hybridized with other subspecies and are of unknown lineage, and because they serve no conservation purpose. Owners of white tigers say they are popular exhibit animals and increase zoo attendance and revenues as well. The same rationalization can be applied to the selective propagation of white lions, king cheetahs and other phenotypically aberrant animals."
"However, there is an unspoken issue that shames the very integrity of zoos, their alleged conservation programs and their message to the visiting public. To produce white tigers or any other phenotypic curiosity, directors of zoos and other facilities must continuously inbreed father to daughter and father to granddaughter and so on. At issue is a contradiction of fundamental genetic principles upon which all Species Survival Plans for endangered species in captivity are based. White tigers are an aberration artificially bred and proliferated by some zoos, private breeders and a few circuses who do so for economic rather than conservation reasons."
As for breeding tigers of any color, Ron Tilson says, “For private owners to say, ‘We’re saving tigers,’ is a lie,” Tilson says. “They are not saving tigers; they’re breeding them for profit.”
Tilson says the exotic animal market is a multimillion dollar industry, ranking just below the illegal drug trade and just above the illegal gun market.
Tilson says tigers are the most charismatic animal on earth. Their appeal is universal. “They are the alpha predator who used to kill and eat us,” he says. “We cannot help but be in awe of their power and grace. Tigers represent everything fine and decent and powerful. Everything those people would like to be. It’s all an ego trip—big guns, big trucks, and big tigers.”
Consider this: Only 1 in 4 tiger cubs from a white tiger bred to an orange tiger carrying the white gene are born white, and 80% of those die from birth defects associated with the inbreeding necessary to cause a white coat. Of those surviving, most have such profound birth defects, such as immune deficiency, scoliosis of the spine (distorted spine), cleft palates, mental impairments and grotesquely crossed eyes that bulge from their skull that only a small percentage are suitable for display. Due to these birth defects the white tigers often die an early death. According to some tiger trainers, only 1 in 30 of those white cats will consistently perform. The number of tigers that have to be produced and disposed of in order to fill the public’s desire to see white tigers on display is staggering.
Big Cat Rescue has never taken in a white tiger before because we did not want to enable people to dispose of their “defective” cats and cause so much more suffering and abuse by having an easy dumping ground for the cats who didn’t serve them.
Even though Zabu is black and white, the decision of whether or not to rescue her was not. When Zabu and Cameron’s plight came to our attention we had to think long and hard about whether or not we would have a white tiger on our tour. We didn’t want to be perceived as using a white tiger to draw visitors.
Many times on our tours we tell guests about the fraud that has been promoted to the public about white tigers and talk about all of our golden tigers who ended up unwanted and abandoned at our door because they were the wrong colour. Now we were considering turning away a white tiger because she was the wrong colour. In her case the facility was being shut down and by rescuing her we were not enabling the owner to breed more and we were keeping a cat of prime breeding age from falling into the hands of people who would breed her to death.
Every year we have to turn away hundreds of big cats. Please do not support those who breed these majestic animals for a life of cruel confinement. No animal, especially a tiger, belongs in a cage.
Carole Baskin, Founder Big Cat Rescue
The White Tiger Fraud by Dan Laughlin, DVM, Ph.D.
I would like to take this opportunity to offer a very relevant fact regarding all the white tigers that are currently in the U.S. About twenty-five years ago I fully researched and documented the accurate genealogy and origin of the white tiger in the U.S. That research revealed that there were and are two separate origins of white tigers. The one that has received all the attention is the Indian or Bengal tiger bloodline which originated in India and entered the U.S. via a breeding loan to the National Zoo. One of the Indian origin tigers carrying the recessive gene for the white color was the mother of the second litter of white tigers born at the Cinncinnati Zoo in 1976.
The original litter of white tigers born at Cincinnati in 1974 and all subsequent Indian origin bloodline white tigers soon died out in the U.S. without leaving any pure Indian origin Bengal white tigers in the U.S.
What is not known, because I have never published my research definitively showing the true origin of the white tiger in the U.S., is that 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.
Of the twelve live cubs born to the Siberian male and Bengal female at that small zoo, one of the private individuals purchased a litter of two cubs, a brother and sister, and the other individual purchased another litter of five cubs, brothers and sisters, through an animal dealer. Both individuals inbred their brothers and sisters and spontaneously had white tiger cubs born. One white male crossbred tiger, half-Siberian and half-Bengal, was placed on loan to the Cincinnati Zoo where he was crossed with a white carrier female Bengal tiger on loan from the National Zoo. That hybrid crossing in 1976 of the two separate white tiger origin bloodlines produced a litter of four white tiger cubs and one normal colored white carrier cub
The Cincinnati Zoo then returned both parents and three of the cubs to the two exhibitors that had placed their adults there on loan and then the Zoo proceeded to repeatedly inbreed back and forth the white male to his white female sister that the Zoo had retained ownership of for themselves. Thus, every white tiger ever born at the Cincinnati Zoo was and is part Siberian tiger and part Bengal tiger to a greater or lesser degree.
It is those offspring which have been disseminated throughout the U.S. One of the individuals who owned the litter of five brothers and sisters representing the American crossbred white tiger bloodline has continued to inbreed his tigers for
over the past twenty-five years even though his neonate mortality rate has often exceeded eighty per cent and his tigers are severely defective and unfit. By pure chance and against overwhelming odds, when the two separate bloodlines, the
Indian and American, were crossed for the first and only time at the Cincinnati Zoo, the offspring were fairly thrifty and of normal birth weight.
Interestingly, anyone with even cursory experience with and knowledge of the five remaining and endangered subspecies of tigers should be able to simply look at the white tigers throughout the U.S. and clearly see the phenotypic Siberian characteristics present in the cats. Some weigh up to seven hundred pounds and most clearly resemble and exhibit Siberian tiger physical characteristics.
The only conceivable legitimate reason for exhibiting a white tiger would be for educational purposes to clearly and unequivocally illustrate to the public the process of natural selection and how, 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.
This was the normal course of natural selection and evolution of the tiger until a young white tiger male was captured in 1951, raised and then inbred to one of his daughters by a Maharajah in India who had captured him. Then, in the early 1970's, the recessive genetic mutation for the white color was present in both the male Siberian tiger and the female Bengal tiger that were exhibited and bred at the small zoo in South Dakota resulting in the origin of the American white tiger bloodline.
To quote from Dr. Ron Tilson, Conservation Director of the Minnesota Zoo, "The white tiger controversy among zoos is a small part ethics and a large part economics. The tiger Species Survival Plan has condemned breeding white tigers because of their mixed ancestry, most have been hybridized with other subspecies and are of unknown lineage, and because they serve no conservation purpose. Owners of white tigers say they are popular exhibit animals and increase zoo attendance and revenues as well. The same rationalization can be applied to the selective propagation of white lions, king cheetahs and other phenotypically aberrant animals."
"However, there is an unspoken issue that shames the very integrity of zoos, their alleged conservation programs and their message to the visiting public. To produce white tigers or any other phenotypic curiosity, directors of zoos and other facilities must continuously inbreed father to daughter and father to granddaughter and so on. At issue is a contradiction of fundamental genetic principles upon which all Species Survival Plans for endangered species in captivity are based. White tigers are an aberration artificially bred and proliferated by some zoos, private breeders and a few circuses who do so for economic rather than conservation reasons."
Dr. Tilson made these comments before I informed him that all the white tigers in the U.S. are crossbred or hybrid animals, part Siberian and part Bengal. So, in conclusion, every white tiger in the U.S. is not only the result of repeated inbreeding of genetically defective animals but, even worse, is a hybrid or crossbred animal. Thus, anyone involved in breeding and/or exhibiting white tigers is doing a great disservice to honest conservation and preservation efforts to save the five remaining and endangered subspecies of tigers barely clinging to survival in their rapidly diminishing natural habitats.
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.
hope this information helps inform visitors to your website.
Sincerely,
Daniel C. Laughlin, DVM, PhD
Note: Dr. Laughlin is widely recognized internationally for his expertise in the care and management of zoological animals, especially zoological cats and elephants. He has an international consulting practice limited to zoological animals and when he completed his research into the accurate genealogy of the white tiger he had well over 250 tigers in his practice alone. He also completed a landmark four-year study in the 1970's determining the efficacy, dosage and safety of a modified-live trivalent FVRC-P vaccine for use on zoological cats. That study included 224 zoological cats representing 19 different species and the results of that vaccination study have saved the lives of thousands of captive zoological cats. Dr. Laughlin has graciously agreed to be a Consultant for the care and management of our extensive collection of zoological cats at "Big Cat Rescue."
Inbreeding Time Line
Chronology of the white Bengal tiger up until the death of Mohan:
1820: A white tiger was displayed at Exeter Change.
1915: White tiger cub captured by Maharajah Gulab Singh of Rewa. Upon its death it was gifted to King George V as a sign of India's loyalty to the crown.
25th May 1951: A forest labourer reported sighting a white tiger cub.
26th May 1951: The cub's mother and two of its three siblings were shot and killed.
27th May 1951: Maharaja Martand Singh captured Mohan.
30th May 1951: The cub escapes and a large party goes out to recapture it.
26th February 1952: A normal coloured tigress named Begum is captured.
10th April 1955: Begum produced a litter of a male and two female cubs. All were orange, as were all the cubs in her subsequent two litters.
December 1957: Mohan was mated with Radha, his four-year-old daughter from the second litter with Begum.
20th October 1958: Radha produced an all-white litter of a male and three female cubs. They were christened Raja, Rani, Sukeshi and Mohini. Subsequently:
The male and one female (Raja and Rani) were gifted to the National Zoological Gardens in New Delhi.
Mohini was transported to Washington D.C.
Sukeshi was kept for mating with Mohan and remained with him until he was withdrawn from breeding. She was then housed with her son in hopes they would breed but he showed no interest in mating with her and after six years without success she too was transferred to the National Zoological Gardens in New Delhi where she died on the 2nd February 1975.
May 1964: Raja and Rani were mated. Rani gave birth to two white cubs, a male and a female. She mauled both and the female died. The male, 'Tippu' lost his tail and was hand-raised with great difficulty.
August 1965: Two white cubs born to Rani. Both die due to neglect.
19th December 1965: Three white cubs are born to Rani. They were left in her care for just over a month, at which point she lost interest and they were hand-raised. The female dies at the age of 17-months and one male dies on the 17th April 1967 during shipping to the United States.
Breeding of Rani continued and she produced a total of 20 white cubs.
19th December 1969: Mohan died aged 19 years 7 months. All captive white tigers descend from Mohan, which explains why they are so genetically inbred.
Genetics of the White Tiger
White Tigers can ONLY exist in captivity by continual inbreeding, such as father to daughter, brother to sister, mother to son and so forth. This is because the white color is the result of a double recessive allele (gene) and thus the white color can only be produced by inbreeding one tiger carrying the recessive gene for the white color to another tiger carrying the same recessive gene. Before the five remaining species of tigers were pushed to the brink of extinction by the activities of humans, the random occurrence of one normal colored tiger carrying the recessive gene for the white color breeding to another normal colored tiger also carrying the recessive gene for white color, thus producing one or possibly two cubs possessing the double allele for the white color and consequently being born white, occurred about once in every 10,000 births. That statistical approximation is based upon recorded observations in the wild of white cubs. It should be noted that the first recorded observation of a white cub was made in the mid-fifteenth century and the only wild observations of white cubs have been in Bengal tigers.
Because the white coloration is so disadvantageous to survival there is no recorded evidence of a white cub ever living long enough in the wild to become an adult. That is why white tigers ONLY exist in captivity and then ONLY as the result of continual, destructive and unethical inbreeding. Thus, the concept of the "Royal Rare White Bengal Tiger" is a myth and likely the most deceptive misconception and most destructive conservation fraud ever perpetrated on the American public. The truth is that all the white tigers currently in the United States are not even Bengal tigers but are worthless hybrids or crossbreds originating from normal colored offspring born to a pure Siberian male tiger and a pure Bengal female tiger that were kept together during the 1960's at the Sioux Falls, S.D. Zoo. Unknown to the Zoo at that time or to the two private exhibitors who purchased cubs from two litters born at the Zoo, all the normal colored cubs carried the recessive gene for the white color because either or both their Siberian father or their Bengal mother was a or were random carriers of the recessive mutant gene. Thus when the two private exhibitors that purchased litter mates from the Sioux Falls Zoo unethically bred brother to sister, the recessive mutant genes were paired, producing one or two white tigers.
Both private exhibitors have experienced neonatal mortality rates in excess of 80% because the recessive gene for the white color is a deleterious mutation and thus is co-linked to numerous other deleterious and often fatal characteristics such as immune deficiency, strabismus (crossed eyes), scoliosis of the spine (distorted spine), cleft palates, mental impairments and early death.
The genetics of all recessive genes works like this:
If we assign, say a capital "N" to represent normal color in a tiger and a small "w" to represent white color (because the white color is recessive and the orange color is dominant), then a normal colored orange tiger would be represented as "NN" and a normal colored orange tiger carrying the recessive gene for the white color would be represented as "Nw." So, if we bred a normal colored orange tiger to a normal colored orange tiger carrying the recessive gene for the white color, we would represent that cross as "NN" x "Nw" and the offspring would be represented as: half "NN" and half "Nw". In other words, one-half of the cubs would be normal orange color non-carriers and one-half would be normal color orange carriers of the recessive white gene.
Then, if the two normal color orange carriers of the white gene were bred to each other (brother to sister) the genetic representation would be: "Nw" x "Nw" and the offspring would be something like this: one-forth "NN", one-half "Nw" and one fourth "ww".
In other words, one out of four cubs, statistically, would be a a normal orange colored non-carrier cub ("NN"), one-half of the cubs would be normal orange colored carriers of the recessive white gene (2 "Nw") and one cub would be a double allele carrier of the white recessive gene ("ww") and thus be colored white.
But, when you cross a white male to a white female ("ww" x "ww") you can only have all white cubs born ("ww") and that is what The Cincinnati Zoo and individuals such as Siegfried and Roy have been doing for at least the past fifteen generations, always breeding for large size, thus unknowingly emphasizing the Siberian phenotypic or physical characteristics deriving from "Kubla," the pure Siberian male at the Sioux Falls, S.D. Zoo.
An unnatural fate
St. Petersburg Times; St. Petersburg, Fla.; May 27, 2001; LINDA GIBSON;
Abstract:
[Janie], a white Siberian tiger; Taking a cruise last weekend on Lake Seminole are, cubs Teddy and Emily, 5 months and about 75 pounds, and Nini, 11 months and 150 pounds, with owner [Vernon Yates], and his girlfriend Tina Pennington.; This tiger cub,; one of a litter of three - she yellow, the other two white males - was born in December at Wild Bill's Airboat Tours and Wildlife Sanctuary in Inverness.; [Susan MacKay] of Inverness holds a Siberian tiger cub; Photo: PHOTO, JILL SAGERS, (2); PHOTO, STEVE HASEL, (2)
On Jan. 6, the St. Petersburg Times ran a picture of an Inverness woman bottle-feeding a couple of 4-week-old tiger cubs, who at that age were cute enough to soften the hardest heart.
The photo featured Susan MacKay, who along with her husband, Bill, runs Wild Bill's Airboat Tours and Wildlife Sanctuary in Citrus County, where they breed tigers.
Readers probably assumed cubs at the sanctuary would stay there for a safe, comfortable life. In reality, they are for sale. And their futures, particularly those of the distinctive-looking white tiger cubs, are fraught with hazard.
Until a few years ago, white tiger cubs were one of the hottest commodities in the wildlife trade. People who work with captive wildlife say a blue-eyed white cub could fetch a price of $50,000 or more.
High prices encouraged frenzied breeding. Females can give birth to litters of two to three cubs up to three times a year. The result is a glut of tiger cubs, both white and yellow. Predictably, prices have plunged. Below is white tiger at Wild Bill's.
"They were rare. Now everybody's got them," said Mitchel Kalmanson, an insurance broker in Maitland who specializes in animal and entertainment coverage."Values have dropped so drastically on white tigers they're not worth insuring anymore."
Now that their dollar value has plummeted, their prospects are gloomy.
Exact numbers are impossible to obtain, but owners of wildlife sanctuaries say there are far more cubs available than suitable places for them to live. Some are bought by people who think they can make pets of them. Sellers often encourage this misperception.
"They get sold to somebody who may be buying them with some degree of innocence," said Lynn Cuny, founder of Wildlife Rescue & Rehabilitation in Boerne, Texas."They'll be given a false bill of goods about how these animals will behave. People really believe that in 10 generations you can breed out millions of years of being an elusive carnivore."
Cuny says she knows of one dealer who tells potential buyers the animals will remain tame if they're not fed red meat.
The quest for valuable cubs led to inbreeding of mothers with sons, brothers with sisters. As a result, many white tiger cubs are born with deformities of the eyes, organs, skeletons or digestive tracts. Because of those conditions, "They have absolutely no conservation value whatsoever," said Ronald Tilson, a Minnesota Zoo executive who coordinates the American Zoo and Aquarium Association's species survival plan for tigers.
In nature, white tigers are rare. Both parents must carry a recessive gene for that color.
Normal tiger behavior in the the wild prevents the kind of inbreeding necessary to produce white cubs.
Once captive-bred cubs are grown and become problems for private owners, they face even bleaker prospects. Most zoos and circuses breed their own cats. Sanctuaries already are full of castoffs and routinely turn down people who offer to donate the tigers they bought as cubs.
"We had to turn away 311 cats last year, mostly lions and tigers," said Carole Baskin, founder of Big Cat Rescue, a sanctuary for big cats in north Hillsborough County.
So what happens when the owners can no longer handle them?
"They end up in roadside zoos where they'll probably live a wretched life," Tilson said.
"If they're lucky, people might call a vet and arrange a humane death," Cuny said.
Janie's story is an example of what can happen to a white tiger cub.
When she arrived in 1997 at Vernon Yates' of Seminole, she was 4 years old and should have weighed about 400 pounds.
She weighed 100 pounds.
"Janie could hardly hold her head up," Yates said. "You know what a greyhound looks like? You could see her ribs. We didn't even have to hold her down to put an IV in her."
Janie's owner, Bruce Eisenmann, sent her to Yates on orders from an inspector with the state Wildlife Commission. She was one of three tigers in Eisenmann's possession in Alva, near Fort Myers. The inspector found the cats after a neighbor complained. All were emaciated, with hairless patches of skin and open sores, according to wildlife commission records.
Through his company, Tiger Rescue Foundation, Eisenmann got the tigers to display at schools, churches, nursing homes and civic associations. In June 1997, he pleaded no contest to a charge of animal cruelty and was put on probation.
Yates said Eisenmann told him the tigers had been ill.
"We could never find anything wrong except not enough food," Yates said.
Eisenmann has moved from Florida, according to his mother in South Carolina. Contacted there, Louise Eisenmann said her son was too ill to discuss the matter. She did not elaborate.
Eisenmann's Tiger Rescue Foundation no longer exists. Because nobody ever paid Janie's boarding bill, Yates says, the tiger still lives with him.
So do Nikita and Natasha, whose Jacksonville owner gave up on them as pets; Sunny, the pet of a Fort Lauderdale man who got scared of her; Roslyn, another ex-pet; Calvin, a pet who was going to be euthanized because of medical problems; and Hobbes, who was given to Yates in a shoebox a few hours after his birth; and a number of cubs.
Kalmanson said at least a dozen people in Florida breed white tigers for sale.
The MacKays advertise their cubs in a trade magazine called Animal Finders Guide. Among listings for elk calves, albino groundhogs, wolf cubs and wallabies is theirs:
Two male white and one natural color female tiger babies. Raised in our home on bottles with lots of love, they are real sweet. White tiger babies have blue eyes. Another litter due April 1.
McKay said he hopes to sell the white cubs for $10,000 each.
When the cubs are small, they're so cute and playful that some people find them irresistible.
But, says Baskin, "After a year or so, people realize they make horrible pets."
As sexual maturity nears, tigers experience a growth spurt and a change in behavior that can stun unwary owners.
"Suddenly, this person has a several-hundred-pound carnivorous animal in their home," Cuny said. "It's not uncommon for people to have dogs, cats and children in the same home."
Even Yates, who runs the wildlife sanctuary, has had difficulty managing his tigers. Twice in a year, they have had litters of cubs unexpectedly, which he acknowledges shouldn't have happened. He said he plans to castrate the males or get contraceptive implants for the females. He plans to keep the cubs, not sell them.
There's one other issue. If tigers aren't suitable pets, what message does Yates send by taking them for rides on his boat?
"It is a problem," he said. "When people see that, they see the good side. But I tell them, 'You're not seeing the other side. These are large animals, and they can hurt you.' "
Yates has a state license to keep tigers and tells people it's illegal to keep them without one.
The challenges grow along with the animal.
"How do you get a 500-pound tiger to the vet? We have people call us all the time asking, 'How can we do it?' " Baskin said.
People also fail to consider that the vet who treats their dogs and cats probably doesn't have any experience with tigers.
Tigers live for up to 20 years, Yates said. They're noisy even after being spayed or neutered. They eat 15 to 20 pounds of raw meat a day.
One of MacKay's tigers weighs around 800 pounds.
"He's very friendly," MacKay said, "but he's testy if you turn your back on him. He'll come for you like you're a toy. He could crush me in a heartbeat."
He has been hurt just once, he said, when one of his tigers gave him a "love bite."
"Just a 14-stitcher," MacKay said. "He put his mouth around my ankle and didn't release his grip."
Although MacKay gave an initial interview to the Times about raising cubs, he later would not respond to telephone and fax inquiries regarding the advisability of breeding them or criticisms of the practice by others.
Once owners decide their "pet" isn't working out, they discover how hard it is to get rid of a grown tiger.
"The first thing they'll do is call the local zoo," Cuny said. "Nine times out of 10, the zoo says, 'No thanks.' Then they'll call animal control, which tells them to try a sanctuary. The sanctuary will most likely say, 'We'd love to help you but we're full.' Or, 'We're a non-profit. We can take it if you can contribute several thousand dollars toward its lifetime care.' "
In Florida, it's against the law to own a tiger as a pet. But there are loopholes. If you're going to use a tiger for some commercial purpose, such as as a mascot for a business, or to educate the public, or to be photographed for movies or commercials, you can get a license to own a tiger. The animals also can be sold to buyers from states that don't regulate private ownership of non-native wildlife, such as Texas or Alabama.
But even within Florida, enforcement is scattered. Florida's Wildlife Commission has only 10 investigators to cover the entire state.
"People hide them from inspectors," Kalmanson said. "They get thrown in cages that are too small."
Some people who buy or sell tiger cubs tend to be secretive. Even if properly licensed, they don't want to attract attention from neighbors or animal-rights activists.
One seller with an ad in Animal Finders Guide listed four Siberian tiger cubs, born April 20, as free to a good home. She listed a phone number in the 727 area code.
She abruptly hung up when she learned her caller was a reporter.