White tigers are tigers with pink noses and white to cream colored fur with black, grey or chocolate-colored stripes; their eyes are usually blue, but may be green or amber. There are around 600 white tigers in the world. Because this coloration is so striking, white tigers have become popular attractions in zoos and entertainment that showcases exotic animals; the magicians Siegfried and Roy are famous for using several trained white tigers in their shows. Contrary to popular belief, white tigers are not an endangered species in their own right, but are a sel ...
Most white tigers currently in captivity can trace ancestry to a single individual - a male named Mohan, captured in India in 1951. Although Mohan was not the first white tiger in captivity, he was the first to successfully breed in captivity. Mohan was bred to a wild-caught orange tigress named Begum, but they produced only orange cubs because Begum did not carry the white gene. Mohan was then repeatedly bred to his daughter Radha. Radha's offspring included Mohini (Enchantress). Mohan died in 1969, aged almost 20. He was the last recorded wild-caught white tiger and the first Bengal tiger to be regis ...
Because the gene pool is so small, many white tigers suffer from health problems due to inbreeding. For this reason, responsible zoos refuse to breed two white tigers together. However, two white parents are the only way to ensure white cubs; if a white tiger mates with a partner that is heterozygous for the gene, only one in four of the offspring will be white. Thus, due to the high demand for white tigers, less scrupulous breeders still breed white tigers together. Some animal rights activists have called f ...
