What is a White Tiger?

White tigers are very popular with pseudo sanctuaries, breeders and exhibitors as they tend to bring in more visitors and more money. White tigers are a sub-species of Bengal tigers and not albino or their own species like many people think. White tigers occur after breeding two Bengal tigers with a recessive gene that controls coat color. It has been said the entire captive white tiger population originated from one single white tiger and has been inbred ever since. In order to retain this recessive gene zoos and breeders must continually breed father to daughter and father to granddaughter and so on. This inbreeding has caused many genetic problems with tigers such as cleft palates, scoliosis of the spine, mental impairments and cross eyes. Many of the cubs that are born either in zoos or by breeders have to be ‘disposed’ of because they are malformed at birth. White Bengal tigers have also been crossed with Siberian tigers to produce a larger specimen which in turn causes even more genetic problems. For years breeders and exhibitors have been using the excuse that white tigers are an endangered species so they need to keep breeding them. This is a false statement. Breeders of white tigers do not contribute to any species survival plan; they are breeding for money. In reality, not only does the breeding of white tigers compound the problem by giving the general public a completely incorrect image of these powerful wild predators, in addition it has caused a giant surplus of regular golden colored tigers in the private sector across the world because most litters still have several orange tigers. Out of a litter of cubs, the breeders will pick the white cubs that bring in a lot more money on the market and euthanize, inhumanely destroy or neglect the cubs that do not meet the color requirement.