White Tiger

Gallery: POP PhotosPosted January 29, 2014102 views3 comments

This Tiger leaves within a 60,00 hectare fenced area of the Free Stare in South Africa, and catches its own food.
It lives a t Tiger Canyons a breeding project run by John Varty, to all extents it is as free as any animal living in any of the many fenced game parks in South Africa, Namibia and Botswana.
The colour is not determined by inbreeding as many of these seen in zoos.
EOS 1DX
200-400mm F4 at 232mm
F5.6
ISO 800
1/400
EV +0.33

Comments

3 comments

Comment posted by John Tobias on January 29, 2014 at 3:22 PM

Ken, I do not understand your comment on the color not being determined by inbreeding? Was this animal captured in India? I am not aware of any white tigers coming out of the wild in over 50 years. It is a nice tiger photo. Good detail and an interesting position of the tiger.

Registered on September 12, 2009, 2120 Posts, 6455 Comments

Comment posted by Ken Watkins on January 30, 2014 at 1:22 AM

John,

Thanks for your comment, I must confess that I really do not understand "fully" the White Tigers situation and know about the lack of them in the "wild".
But then again there roughly 10 times the wild population in "captivity" where as I understand it deliberate attempts are undertaken to breed White Tigers, by breeding related Tigers.
The origins of the Tigers at Tiger Canyons where two from Canada and two from South Africa and just recently two more from South Africa, this is intended to maximise the gene pool, and is being further reinforced by vasectomy of some of the males to prevent inbreeding.
Having visited India on 4 occasions, I feel that there is virtually no chance for them in the wild, so anything that helps maintain, some form of "wild" population (i.e. not caged in tiny pens) is very worthwhile.

Registered on December 15, 2010, 1537 Posts, 4877 Comments

Comment posted by Brad Hill on January 30, 2014 at 10:26 AM

Hi Ken,

The captive nature of this shot (along with hand-raising and associated habituation of animals at this facility) preclude this image from appearing in the Wildlife Gallery. As such I'm moving it over to the POP Gallery.

Nice shot - like the tongue and the upraised front paw.

Cheers...

Brad

Registered on May 29, 2007, 431 Posts, 6061 Comments