Snow Tigers?

What are snow tigers? There is no single answer to that question, because there is no cat species known as a "snow tiger". It could be that people are referring to Snow Leopards, a gray cat with charcoal spots that lives above the permafrost line in mountain tops at the top of the world. If that is the cat you are thinking of, you can read more about them at SNOW LEOPARDS.

Some people refer to tigers who live where it snows, as Snow Tigers, but that would be Siberian Tigers which are also known at Amur Tigers and you can read more about them HERE.

There has been a huge deception played out by the entertainment industry that there is such a thing as a Royal White Bengal Tiger and these are sometimes referred to as Snow Tigers, but they are not a species of tiger, but rather an inbred and cross bred version of tiger that was created only because people will pay to see a white tiger. They cannot be used for conservation breeding and suffer all of the problems associated with inbreeding. You can read The Truth About White Tigers HERE.

The White Lion and White Liger also come from severe inbreeding, just to get the white coat, causing serious birth defects and you can read more about that HERE.

The White Servals in the slide show above were the product of indiscriminate breeding as well and have been neutered to prevent future generations of cats who would suffer from birth defects, just to fill an ignorant market caused by people who don't know where that white coat really comes from.

You can buy many of the photos in the above slide show at our Stock Photo page.

Like the music, Untamed Heart? Get it HERE

White tigers do not live to adulthood in the wild, so the fact below pertain to golden tigers and are extrapolated to include white tigers, even though their lack of camouflage would not allow them to live to adult hood.

The elusive snow white tiger is truly a cat of many faces! Artistically "snow white tiger" has been used in reference to the coat pattern of the white Bengal tiger. In more serious texts the term has been used to identify the most well known snow inhabiting tiger - the Siberian or Amur tiger. In some older references, almost any large cat might be referred to as a tiger, so depending on the source it's also possible that "snow tiger" could apply to the Snow Leopard as well. To make this truly confusing, avalanches of snow are also sometimes referred to as snow tigers, a tribute to just how fierce and deadly an avalanche (or a tiger) can be.

Distribution: Originally widespread, tigers were found in a very diverse variety of habitats: savannah, mangroves and temperate, coniferous and tropical rain forests. They require sufficient cover, year-round access to water, and a steady supply of suitable large prey. Their former distribution was from eastern Turkey and Transcaucasia through India and Indo-China to the Indonesian islands Java and Bali. There is no evidence to suggest that they inhabited the Tibetan plateau, but they do live in the foothills of the Himalayas, usually below 1,300 metres but occasionally higher and have killed domestic animals at 2,700 metres. One was seen at 3,960 metres. Amur or Siberian tigers live at 1,200 metres and descend in winter.

Habitat: A snow white tiger's territory depends on the amount of food available, and usually ranges from about 10 to 30 square miles. Siberian tigers sometimes have really big territories (up to 120 square miles). Although tigers usually live alone, territories can overlap. A male tiger's domain usually overlaps those of several female tigers.

Diet: The main prey animals of snow white tigers in India are deer, buffalo, wild pigs, porcupines and langur monkeys. If they have the opportunity they will kill wolves, young rhinoceros, young elephant and even leopards. As a very large solitary carnivore, a tiger regards all animals it encounters as potential food.

A snow white tiger is able to kill a full grown adult bull gaur, and yet can be killed by a wild boar and wild dogs. Rotting flesh and birds are also eaten by tigers and occasionally they supplement their diets with fruit. Like domestic cats, snow white tigers eat grass in order to improve their digestion.

A female must kill approximately every eight days, and when lactating or producing milk, every five days or so.

Reproduction & Offspring: Female tigers reach maturity when they are 3 years old, when she is ready to mate she signals her readiness with scent markings and loacting roars. The brief act of copulation continues for a five day period as tigers require frequent copulation to become pregnant. In warm climates the female may be on heat throughout the year, wheras in colder climates she comes into heat only seasonally. The average tiger litter is normally 2/3 cubs (largest 5), One unfortunately dies at birth. Tiger cubs are born blind and weigh only about 2/3 pounds, depending on the subspecies. They live on their mother's milk for 6-8 weeks before being taken to kills to feed. They begin making their own kills at about 18 months of age.

Life span: The life span of a Tiger in the wild is about 10 to 15 years. In zoos they 10-12 years and in sanctuaries they can live into their twenties.

Conservation status: Tigers are classified by IUCN (the World Conservation Union) as endangered and they are protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES) which came into force in 1975 to regulate the trade in endangered wildlife. From the beginning all tigers (except the Amur) were listed on Appendix 1, which bans international trade in tigers and their body parts. In 1986 this protection was extended to the Amur tiger.

About the species: White tigers are neither albinos nor a special species. They differ from the normally colored tigers by having blue eyes, a pink nose, and creamy white fur with black stripes. If they were albinos they would have pink eyes and a lighter nose color. A tigers stripes are just like human fingerprints meaning that no two tigers have the same pattern of stripes. White tigers aren't necessarily born from other white tigers. White tigers get their color by a double recessive allele. A Bengal tiger with two normal alleles or one normal and one white allele is colored orange. Only a double dose of the mutant allele results in white tigers.

The first recorded white tigers:

White Bengal Tiger

White tigers are almost never found in the wild. In about 100 yeas only 12 white tigers have been reported in the wild habitats of India and most of these were probably snow leopards. They are almost extinct and most of the ones living are in captivity, mainly in zoos. This specific tiger is neither an albino or a separate subspecies of the tiger. They are simply white colored and have black stripes. It has blue eyes and a pink nose. It also has pristine white colored fur. The white tiger is born to a bengal tiger that has the recessive gene needed for white coloring. A pure white tiger has no stripes and are completely white in color.

Pristine wildness !

The white coat is caused by a double recessive allele in the genetic makeup, and only turns up naturally about once in every 10,000 births. Strangely enough, the Bengal tiger is the only subspecies in which this seems to happen. As magnificent as it may look, life of a white tiger can't be as easy as it looks.

Habitat & Range: Tigers usually dwell in an area from about 10 to 30 square miles where there is enough prey, cover/shelter and water to support them. Territory mainly depends upon the amount of prey which is available. The more concentrated the prey the smaller is the area that a tiger needs to survive.

Life span: White tigers in the wild live for about 10 to 15 years while tigers in zoos usually survive 16 and 20 years.

Diet: Tigers do not hunt in social groups like lions. They are usually solitary animals. In the wild, tigers would eat pig, cattle and deer. They can eat as much as 40 pounds of meat at one time! After such a big meal a tiger will not eat again for several days. White Tigers possess's 30 large teeth ranging from 2.5 to 3 inches.

Caring for Young: Tigers are generally prefer staying aloof, except when caring for their young. Tigers keep their young with them for 2 or 3 years until the young tigers can fend for themselves.

Fascinating facts about white tiger:

- The White Tiger is a good swimmer, but a very poor climber.

- They may be slow runners, but they are stealthy enough to catch any prey in their sights.

- Because they are solitary animals, they hunt mostly at night

- White tigers are born to Bengal tigers that carry an unusual gene needed for white coloring.

- The other four sub-species of tiger are Siberian, South China, Indochinese, and Sumatran. There are only approximately 3,500 tigers left in the wild.

Status: At the beginning of this century it is estimated that there were 100,000 wild tigers, today the number is less than 4,000. Simply put, tigers are disappearing in the wild. The main threats to tigers are poaching, habitat loss and population fragmentation.

White Tiger Information

White tigers are an Asian species, found from the frozen tundra of the Soviet Far East, south to the humid jungles of Malaya and Indonesia, and west to the hot, hardwood forests of India. There are five living subspecies; three others are already extinct. Current estimates put the world population of wild tigers at about 3,500-4,000, the most numerous race being the Bengal race, distributed among some 18 tiger reserves and sanctuaries of India (and a half-dozen in Nepal and Bangladesh), accounting for over two-thirds of all wild tigers.

History of big cat hybridization:

Various hybridizations amongst cats occurred back in the days when zoos particularly wanted oddities to attract the public. These date back as far as the 1800s, because zoos are often more menageries designed to turn a profit rather than carefully controlled attempts at animal conservation.

Cross-breeding in India was first recorded in 1837 when a Princess of the native Indian state Jamnagar presented a hybrid big cat to Queen Victoria.

In Europe, hybridization can be traced back to before the First Great War, when German Carl Gottfried Hagenbeck carried out experiments with big cats and then noted that the males were likely to remain sterile.

Hybridization in the wild:

It is extremely rare for any wild animal to breed with one from another species.

For instance, in the wild the Grant's and Thompson's gazelle live together happily in mixed herds. The species are very alike and only experts are able to discern one from the other. Despite this there are no known instances of these gazelle interbreeding.

White tiger controversy:

The white tiger controversy among zoos is a small part ethics and a large part economics. For example, the tiger SSP has condemned breeding white tigers because of their mixed ancestry (most have been hybridized with other subspecies or are of unknown lineage) and because they serve no conservation purpose. Owners of white tigers say white tigers are popular exhibit animals and help increase zoo attendance and, at $60,000 each, revenues as well.

White Tiger Facts

The most famous white tiger of all -- Mohan:
In May 1951, Maharajah Shri Martand Singh was hunting in the jungles of Bandhavgarh, (central India). On the 25th a report came in that a tigress had been sighted with four cubs, one of which was white.

The next day a search was carried out designed to find the tigress. This involved the beating of drums and cans, firing shots, trumpet blasts and shouting.

Weight: Siberian tigers are the heaviest subspecies at 500 or more pounds (225 kg), with males heavier than females. The lightest subspecies is the Sumatran; males weigh about 250 pounds (110 kg) and females around 200 pounds (90 kg).

Measurements: Depending on the subspecies, the head-body length of a tiger is about 41/2 to 9 feet (1.4-2.8 m). The length of the tail is 3 to 4 feet (90-120 cm). The foot pads vary in size with age, resulting in inaccurate estimates when used in censusing wild populations.

Eyes: Tigers have round pupils and yellow irises (except for the blue eyes of white tigers). Due to a retinal adaptation that reflects light back to the retina, the night vision of tigers is six times better than that of humans.

Claws: Like domestic cats, tiger claws are retractable. Tiger scratches on trees serve as territorial markers.

Stripes: No one knows exactly why tigers are striped, but scientists think that the stripes act as camouflage, and help tigers hide from their prey. The Sumatran tiger has the most stripes of all the tiger subspecies, and the Siberian tiger has the fewest stripes. Tiger stripes are like human fingerprints; no two tigers have the same pattern of stripes.

Life span: The life span of tigers in the wild is thought to be about 10 years. Tigers in zoos live twice as long.

Cubs: Tiger cubs are born blind and weigh only about 2 to 3 pounds (1 kg), depending on the subspecies. They live on milk for 6-8 weeks before the female begins taking them to kills to feed. Tigers have fully developed canines by 16 months of age, but they do not begin making their own kills until about 18 months of age.

Head: Often carries the Chinese mark of wang or king on the forehead.

White Tiger Habitat

There are only a small quantity of white tigers in existence and present numbers are put in the region of 500. With the inevitable inbreeding problems a debate continually rages over the wisdom of breeding this animal. White tigers, white lions, white servals, white ligers, none are representative of their wild populations.

Habits: Unlike some big cats like lions, adult tigers like to live alone (except for mother tigers with cubs). This is partly because in the forest, a single tiger can sneak up and surprise its prey better than a group of tigers can.

Range and Habitat: The size of a tiger's territory depends on the amount of food available, and usually ranges from about 10 to 30 square miles (26-78 sq. km). Siberian tigers sometimes have really big territories (as large as 120 square miles). Although tigers usually live alone, tiger territories can overlap. A male tiger's territory usually overlaps those of several female tigers. Today only about 5,000-7,000 wild tigers live across Asia. The past and present ranges of the remaining five tiger subspecies are illustrated. The northernmost living tiger, the Amur or Siberian tiger, lives primarily in southeastern Russia. The South China tiger occurs only in southern China. The range of the Indochinese tiger extends across most of Southeast Asia. The Bengal tiger is found primarily in India, while the Sumatran tiger is restricted to the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The Bali, Caspian, and Javan tigers have become extinct in the past 70 years.

White Tigers - Adaptations:

White tigers have some special adaptations, which help them survive in the wild. For instance, the stripes on the tiger's body help them to become invisible in the tall grass and trees. White tigers have extremely strong jaws and teeth, which are very helpful in catching their prey.

White tigers have a very strong sense of smell, and their eyesight is rather sharp. Bengal tigers are excellent swimmers. Their coat protects them in cold and hot weather.

White Tigers - Social Structure:

Bengal tigers lead a solitary way of life. Both males and females mark territories. However, the male's territory is several times as large as the female's. White tigers occasionally travel in groups of 3 or 4. The group usually consists of mother with sub-adult children.

Endangered White Tiger

There are only around 200 of the white tigers left in the world. White tigers are an Asian species, found from the frozen tundra of the Soviet Far East, south to the humid jungles of Malaya and Indonesia, and west to the hot, hardwood forests of India. There are five living subspecies; three others are already extinct. Current estimates put the world population of wild tigers at about 3,500-4,000, the most numerous race being the Bengal race, distributed among some 18 tiger reserves and sanctuaries of India (and a half-dozen in Nepal and Bangladesh), accounting for over two-thirds of all wild tigers.

Tigers are a protected species all over the world. Even though it's completely illegal to hunt them, people are still slaying these beautiful creatures.

Wild mysteries rewind:

During the last 100 years, merely 12 white tigers have been spotted in the wild in India; giving an approximate proportion of 1 white tiger for every 10,000 normal pigmented (orange) tigers.

The white tiger's origin was recorded in India during the start of the HB Mughal period from 1556 to 1605 A.D.

The first "modern" case of a white tiger being captured was in 1915. He was caught by the local maharajah who kept the tiger until its death.

The recent spotting of a white Bengal tiger in the wild was in Rewa (Central India) on 27, May 1951. This male tiger was captured by the Maharaja Martand Singh of Rewa and was named Mohan - it is from this animal that all white tigers in captivity today are descended.

In 1960, a two year old white tiger in Rewa, Mohini, was bought by a businessman for US $10,000.00 and given to the National Zoo in Washington D.C. On 5th December 1960, Rewa appeared on the USA White House lawn with then president, Eisenhower.

Rewa was used to try and breed more white tigers in the USA (with normal orange tigers) but her offspring had various physical defects.

The voice of a zoologist.

To quote from Dr. Ron Tilson, Conservation Director of the Minnesota Zoo,

"The white tiger controversy among zoos is a small part ethics and a large part economics. The tiger Species Survival Plan has condemned breeding white tigers because of their mixed ancestry, most have been hybridized with other subspecies and are of unknown lineage, and because they serve no conservation purpose. Owners of white tigers say they are popular exhibit animals and increase zoo attendance and revenues as well. Similar rationalization can be applied to the selective propagation of white lions, king cheetahs and other phenotypically aberrant animals."

"However, there is an unspoken issue that shames the very integrity of zoos, their alleged conservation programs and their message to the visiting public. To produce white tigers or any other phenotypic curiosity, directors of zoos and other facilities must continuously inbreed father to daughter and father to granddaughter and so on. At issue is a contradiction of fundamental genetic principles upon which all Species Survival Plans for endangered species in captivity are based. White tigers are an aberration artificially bred and proliferated by some zoos, private breeders and a few circuses who do so for economic rather than conservation reasons."

Let's resolve this wild aberration!!

The best and most appropriate solution to white tiger conservation is exhibiting and breeding white tigers is the very antithesis of conservation, is dishonest and unethical and is tantamount to catering to the public's desire to see genetic aberrations rather than educating the public regarding the incredible process of natural selection, how the unbelievable diversity of life has evolved on our planet throughout the past 50 million years and the crucial need for us to preserve natural habitats and stop the destruction of our global ecosystem if we desire to save any threatened or endangered species from extinction.

Snow White Tiger

A female must kill approximately every eight days, and when lactating or producing milk, every five days or so.

Life span: The life span of a Tiger in the wild is about 10 to 15 years. In Zoos they tend to live to between 16 and 20 years old.

The first recorded white tigers:
The first white tiger to be captured was not, as is often claimed, the famed Mohan. There were several captures and a large number of sightings (and shootings) prior to this. For instance, in one of the earliest records a white tiger was displayed at Exeter Change in 1820.

Shootings were common between 1892 and 1922 in places like Orissa, Upper Assam, Bilaspur, Cooch Behar and Poona. Between the 1920s and 1930s fifteen white tigers were killed in the region of Bihar alone. Some of these trophies were placed on display in the Calcutta Museum. (Incidentally, this is the ninth oldest regular museum in the world).

White Lions

There is only one example of a melanistic lion that I have ever read about. This was a report of a very big Persian lion that was seen by the archaeologist Sir Henry Layard which was described as being "very dark brown in colour, in parts almost black." There are, of course, no lions at all left in Persia today...much less big black ones. An albino lion cub was born recently in the Lujan Zoo in Buenos Aires. In his book, "Wild Cats of the World", C.A.W. Guggisberg makes mention of a couple of albino cubs born in Kruger National Park in 1960, and one of these albinos was apparently still alive in 1977, when it was mentioned in the preface to the book "The White Lions of Timbavati"

Timbavati is a small game reserve adjacent to Kruger National Park in South Africa. It was formed in 1955 when twenty-eight landowners got together and decided to combine their holdings and dedicate themselves to the preservation of the wildlife thereupon. In 1975, a man named Chris McBride was studying lions there as part of the fieldwork necessary for his masters degree in wildlife management. In early October of that year, his daughter, Lan, and her son, in for a visit, stopped to watch a lioness along the road. To their amazement, two snow white cubs appeared with the new mother along with one normal, tabby colored one. Lan rushed back to get her father, who returned with her to see the cubs. McBride eventually wrote two books about the life of the cubs..."The White Lions of Timbavati" and "Operation White Lion". Both are out of print now but the first, at least, should be pretty easy to find... Check the local library. The cubs turned out to be a male, who came to be called "Temba" (Zulu for "Hope"), and a female... "Tombi" ("Girl"). The normal colored cub was a litter-mate that the McBrides named "Vela". Later, a third white cub, "Phuma" was found in a different pride, but soon disappeared and is presumed to have died.

Even though the cubs were snow-white... they WEREN'T albinos. They had normal yellowish-brown eyes instead of the pink eyes that an albino would have. The white color is caused by a recessive gene, much like the white tigers of India.

In the first book,"The White Lions of Timbavati", McBride tells about the discovery of the cubs, and of the concern he had for the survival of the very special cubs. In "Operation White Lion" he tells of his final decision to capture the cubs and of how he went about it.

Temba, Tombi, and Vela were eventually sent to the National Zoo in Pretoria, South Africa. Vela was sold, unknown where... Tombi died before ever producing... and Temba died in 1996 after producing several offspring. The known surviving animals in the strain are one heterozygous male in Pretoria... two white females and a heterozygous male that are at the Zoological Animal Reproduction Center in Indiana... and two heterozygous males from the Cincinnati zoo that have been moved to a private reserve in Africa. (Heterozygous lions, at least in the present context, are normal-colored animals that carry the recessive gene for the white coloration.)

This was not the only strain of white lions to come from the Timbavati area, however. The predominant strain today comes from a heterozygous male caught by the Johannesburg zoo in 1977. The '77 male came from a different pride than Temba, Tombi, and Vela, but when he was bred to his own daughters he produced white cubs. These cats, and their offspring, are represented in the Philadelphia and Toronto zoos as well as some in Germany, China, and Japan. This is also the strain owned by Siegfried and Roy at The Mirage in Las Vegas, Nevada.

There is a third bloodline that comes from a white male that was captured in the Timbavati area in the late 1980's and kept by a private reserve.

As in the case of the white tigers, the white lions have been inbred to their own relatives to perpetuate the unique white/cream-colored coat.

Unlike the white tigers, all of the white lions are of a known subspecies... Panthera leo krugeri. Captive lions in general are a notoriously mixed up lot. According to the latest studbook, there are only 63 lions of KNOWN subspecies in North American and South African zoos combined. Of these... 53 are P. l. krugeri. (The Toronto Zoo, however, presently has their white female paired with a male of mixed subspecies. If they produce cubs, those cubs will NOT be subspecies-pure.)

The SSP for the African Lions discourages line-breeding to isolate the white coat color. Inbreeding will eventually cause trouble in any population. The only reason anyone inbreeds white lions, white tigers or snow tigers is because people will pay to see them. When people choose compassion over their obsession with the white coat color, the world will be a better, healthier and happier place for the cats.

First Name
Email