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The Invalid

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White tigers do not exist in the wild. They are not Siberian tigers nor are they any kind of subspecies. They are a result of a recessive gene causing Leucism, which interferes with pigment in cells and causes the animal to appear partially albino.

It is a recessive gene, and one that only manifests as a white tiger due to inbreeding. The first captive white tigers were born when a white tiger cub was found in the wild and taken in, and when he became an adult he was bred, producing normal orange tigers. But when bred back to one of his daughters, she had white cubs.

Nearly all white tigers today are descended from that one male. Due to intense inbreeding, over half of all white tiger cubs are stillborn. Even more are hideously deformed, with only a small percentage of them deemed suitable to be shown to the public.

They are commonly crossbred to Siberian tigers to make them larger and flashier for the show ring. The subspecies mixing and interbreeding has gotten so bad that the majority of American captive tigers are now considered completely useless for conservation efforts.

In addition to hampering conservation efforts, white tigers suffer from other problems related to inbreeding, including cleft palate, scoliosis, compromised immune systems, cross-eyes and vision problems, mental deficiencies, balance problems and an extremely painful problem in which the cat's brain becomes too large for its skull.

White tigers do exist in the wild but usually die in infancy, and tiger mothers often purposefully smother their white cubs. They are bred primarily to be pretty, but little else.
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muura's avatar
Thanks for bringing important information into publicity <3