Asia

Asia came to us as a youngster. She was supposedly a pure Bengal tiger. However, she appears to be half Siberian. She hasn't outgrown her fluffy long fur around her neck ruff (Siberians have longer fur for warmth in their frozen habitat), is large for her age (they are a bigger subspecies), and has whiter hairs in the winter (camouflage in the snow).

Asia came from a very irresponsible breeder. She was on an improper diet (cow's milk, cats are lactose intolerant) and suffered serious health problems at first. We used her in our outreach educational program as a cub, much to the delight of many school children. They learned all about the illegal trade of tiger parts and she learned all about walking on a leash. Handleable cats are much more placeable and are happier in the long run. They will get interaction with their owner/handler/trainer as opposed to sitting alone in an enclosure for the rest of their life. She was placed with a wonderful, fully licensed home in California.

The Problem With Tigers...

Unfortunately, there are what we call "tiger mills" out there. There is a large demand for cubs, but a very small market for adolescents and adults. Tigers breed extremely easily in captivity. They are "a dime a dozen". Considering the cost of feeding them, it is difficult to turn a profit in breeding. Some will sell their cubs at two weeks old to cut their losses. Many backyard breeders that don't have good networking cannot move their cubs quickly enough. Another problem resulting from this saturation of the market is the overbreeding of "white gene" tigers. When a white tiger is bred to an orange one, the resulting litter can often be mixed. Most of those resulting cubs are heterozygous, orange with the white gene, and some may be white. White tigers, being so strikingly unusual, are much more valuable. So, from a financial standpoint, if you're going to breed tigers, whites are the way to go. The problem is that a lot of these cats are extremely inbred. Most all of them that we are aware of come from one male in India that was bred to his heterozygous daughter. And in addition to that, irresponsible breeders sometimes mate relatives, reducing their losses in time and injuries due to introducing unrelated cats and swapping bloodlines with other facilities. These white cats would not survive in the wild and are doing nothing for the wild population's gene pool. They are more often unhealthy with poorer immune systems than orange cats. They are sometimes also reported as being unpredictable and more dangerous, being slightly "not all there." They are simply bred for exploitation. Please keep this in mind when you see one promoted. Think of it this way, if they were all white, wouldn't an orange one be the most beautiful because of it's contrast? If we do not support more interest in these cats, we will be cutting down the demand. And that is how changes will be made in the animal's favor.

On a good note there is an organization that is trying to rectify this problem in the captive bred population by creating the American Tiger Registry. For more information, and/or to register your tiger, go to the Tiger Missing Link Foundation website.

Sounds

Here (41KB) is a .wav file of the greeting that a tiger makes that we call "chuffing". Asia talks this way endlessly.

More Photos

Here (39KB) is a photo of Asia chasing one of our horses. She thinks the horse cares, but they ignore her...

Here (43KB) is Asia with Conner, the resident cubsitting Rottweiler.

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