...Nothing really new here. You've all seen pictures of white tigers by this point, but you might not know the story of where these cats came from or how they got to be on the wall of every frame shop/print gallery that you walk in to...I am the man to tell you that story. But first...(because I have to turn everything into a freakin' master's thesis)...I will give you a little background on tigers in general. Then I will follow it up with the story of the white tiger in specific...as best I know the facts.

You guys know what a tiger is, right? O.K....There were originally eight accepted subspecies of tiger (Panthera tigris)...here is a list...

The Bali Tiger (P.t. balica) - the smallest and darkest of the tigers lived on the island of Bali where it went extinct when the last female was killed on September 27, 1937.

The Caspian Tiger (P.t. virgata) - was second in size only to the Siberian.The last time a living specimen was seen was in Afghanistan in 1967. A fresh skin was examined in eastern Turkey in 1973. A dozen or so Caspians are thought to have held out in the mountains of northern Iran until about 1980. It is believed to be completely extinct, but occasional reports of sightings still trickle out of the area.

The Javan Tiger (P.t. sondaica) - was the most recent extinction. Last seen in 1972, it is thought that there were only two left by 1981, despite attempts to set up a preserve. There was no report of the animal after 1988.

The South China Tiger (P.t. amoyensis) - continues to be poached. There are probably less than fifty left in the world and only twenty of these are wild. The South China tiger has the most sparsely striped coat of all the tigers.

The Sumatran Tiger (P.t. sumatrae) - This species is the smallest surviving species and is characterized by a long facial "ruff". There are less than 400 left.

The Siberian or Amur Tiger (P.t. altaica) - is the largest of all the tigers, reaching thirteen feet long and weighing up to eight hundred pounds. There are around one thousand left, but around five hundred of these are in captivity. The remaining 200-450 or so live in a small area of northeastern Russia and North Korea.

The Indo-Chinese Tiger (P.t. corbetti) - Around 1200 are spread out over Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Burma, and Malaysia.

The Bengal or Indian Tiger (P.t. tigris) - The most numerous species with approximately 3000 individuals. This is the only subspecies in which Leucistic (white) individuals have been reported.

...for more info on the status of surviving species visit The Tiger Information Center

Over the past one hundred years, there have only been a dozen or so reports of white Bengal tigers being seen in the wild in India. The striking white coat is caused by a double recessive allele in the genetic code, and only turns up naturally about once in every 10,000 births. Strangely enough, the Bengal tiger is the only subspecies in which it seems to happen. As beautiful as it may look, life as a white tiger can't be easy when your life depends on being able to hide from and/or sneak up on things.

In 1951, in central India, Maharaja Shri Martand Singh found a male white cub who's mother had been recently killed. He returned to his palace with the cub that he named "Mohan". The tiger soon became a bit of a celebrity.

When Mohan reached adulthood, he was bred to a normal tiger named "Begum". They produced three litters of cubs, but none of them were white. When Mohan was bred to one of his own daughters from the second litter however, four white cubs were born.One of these white cubs was named "Mohini" who was then bred to her uncle/half-brother "Sampson" and two of their offspring were sent to the National Zoo in Washington D.C. where they were bred to each other and produced, among other cubs, "Kesari" who was the foundation for the Cincinnati Zoo's line of white tigers....yada,yada,yada...you get the picture.

In short, ALL of the white tigers you see in pictures are descendants of Mohan, and they are a close knit family (if you know what I mean). This includes the thirty-five or so "Royal White Tigers of Nevada" kept by Siegfried and Roy at The Mirage in Las Vegas.

The hard working people who are trying to preserve the genetic integrity of all the separate subspecies don't dig the idea of zoo keepers constantly inbreeding one line of Bengals, (and filling up zoo space with pretty oddities), while so many other types of tiger are tottering on the edge of extinction. This is made worse by the fact that, in the rush to produce more white tigers, not much attention was paid to the lineage of the other animals being bred into the line. The result is that few of the white tigers can be said, with any certainty, to be pure Bengal, as Mohan was.

I know that sounds fascist, but I kind of see both sides. If white tigers mean increased attendance at zoos, then they mean more money, and in the hands of a good zoo, more money translates to better facilities...etc...etc.etc. It can only help the SSP, (Species Survival Plan), in the long run....ON THE OTHER HAND...I hate to see the world get to the point where people are only interested in saving the prettiest, the biggest, or the most impressive. I think the white tiger is possibly the most beautiful animal on earth, but we have plenty of them now...They are pseudo-domestic animals totally unsuited for life in the wild...and if there are only 50 Chinese Tigers left...I'd rather someone spend MY zoo admission on THEM.-S.