Historical quotations are credited and are in the public domain. Original text is licensed under the GFDL. I am grateful to Paul McCarthy and Jerry Blackman for researching and providing extensive material, information and corrections on white tigers and for genealogies.

White gene vs Inhibitor gene.
Although these pages refer to white genes, white tigers have the genes for normal orange colours, but those genes are switched off by a recessive inhibitor gene. When a tiger inherits 2 copies of the inhibitor gene, the normal orange colour is suppressed. In general parlance, it s simply easier to refer to white genes.

ALLEGED WHITE AMUR (SIBERIAN) TIGERS

An alleged third strain of white tigers occurred at the Como Zoo in Minnesota where two Amur (Siberian) tigers who were brothers, both born at Como Zoo, supposedly carried the white gene. A lot of digging around indicates that their white descendents are part-Bengal and that the white gene was introduced into the line by Susie, a Bengal tigress (owned by Clyde Beatty). The two Amur brothers had no Bengal ancestry and their parents, a brother and sister who were both registered Amur tigers, had been captured in the wild (though elsewhere, one is described as a Siberian/Bengal cross). Some of the brothers' allegedly purebred Amur descendants are white. One of these Amur brothers (Kubla) was bred to a Bengal tigress (Susie) at Sioux Falls Zoo, South Dakota. Kubla was the grandfather of Tony, a founder of many American white tiger lineages. At the Great Plains Zoo, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Kubla was also mated to an Amur tigress named Katrina who was born at Rotterdam Zoo and joined Kubla and Susie in Sioux Falls after passing through the hands of two other American zoos. Kubla and Katrina had two full-bred Amur daughters.

Susie - Matriarch of a White Tiger Line

As a brief summary, Susie s ancestry is obscure. If Susie was born in a zoo there should be a record of this in the International Zoo Yearbook, but I would need to know which zoo (possibly Sarasota) and whether she had a different name at the zoo that bred or imported her. Without records available, much of the information comes from verbal sources from people who are no longer alive. The only certain fact is that she came from the Sioux Falls Zoo in South Dakota (and possibly from an unidentified West Coast zoo before that). Baron Julius von Uhl claimed to have purchased an imported Bengal tigress named Susie along with the Siberian-cross tiger Kubla from the Sioux Falls Zoo in South Dakota. Roychoudhury thought Susie was bred from wild-caught parents (Susie s mate, rather than Susie, was bred from from wild caught parents.) Sioux Falls Zoo denied having any record of Susie - was this poor record-keeping by the Zoo or did she have a different name with them? Rhys Walkley obtained information about Susie from the Great Plains Zoo in South Dakota and sent the information to Sioux Falls Zoo. Von Uhl claimed that Sheba was three quarters Siberian and one quarter Bengal, and that Raja was half and half which, if true, would make Susie half Siberian! Susie was bred extensively, resulting in 13-14 cubs, before being paired with the Bengal tiger that killed her.

The argument that Sioux Falls tigers were not descended from Mohan, or closely related to him, is that the stripeless white and golden tabby tigers all came out of that lineage, as did so many cross eyed tigers. Bristol Zoo, which had tigers from the Rewa strain, had no cross eyed tigers and no stripeless white tigers. All the Rewa strain were uniform in type with dark stripes. The other alternative would be if Susie had been born in India at Ahmedabad Zoo and imported into the USA. If this isn t the case then Susie s parents carried white and stripeless traits from other Indian imports and these traits only showed up because she was bred to into the white tiger gene pool.

The Bengal/Amur matings resulted in at least 12 live cubs. Of these, a brother and sister pair (Raja [also spelled Radja] and Sheba II) were sold to one individual while 5 cubs (Ural, Prince, Sabre, Sheba III, and Begum) were sold to another individual. The new owners each bred brother to sister; white cubs resulted in both cases. Buck, the tiger who bred with his daughter Bonnie and produced a white cub at the Racine Zoo around 1980 may also have been one of Susie s cubs. One of Susie's cubs went to a zoo in Japan. Three went to the Hawthorn Circus Corp. in Grayslake, Illinois and one or both of the two males may have been fathering white tiger cubs before being castrated because they fought so much. Susie was killed by a Bengal tiger she was paired with for breeding. Kubla was her only documented mate, any previous offspring are unknown.

Chart 3.1: Raja and Sheba II's Offspring (large image, opens in new window)

The other Amur brother was then bred to his Bengal/Amur hybrid niece, Sheba III, while in the Hawthorn Circus. Sheba III produced white cubs suggesting that her pure Amur uncle carried the white gene. However, the majority of the litters sired by her Amur uncle did not include white cubs, which suggests that those white genes actually came from her demi-Bengal brother. Raja and Sheba II were bought by Baron von Uhl and later produced at least 2 more white cubs while at the Henry Doorly Zoo, Omaha. Raja and Sheba II produced two white cubs in Baltimore in 1976. The New York Times wrote: "Rare Tigers Born At Fair. Middle River Maryland, June 27, 1976: "An 8 year old Siberian tiger named Sheba gave birth today to two rare white cubs at the Baltimore County fair. The tigress is owned by Julius Von Uhl who uses her in an animal act. A spokesman for the National Zoo in Washington said that only 36 white tigers are known to exist." However, Von Uhl claims all his cubs were born in Indiana and Georgia. The Baron Julius Von Uhl Circus existed as recently as 1995, but Von Uhl became a horse trainer at the Chicago-based "The Noble Horse" having cut ties with white tigers. He claimed to have owned only 2 white tigers, Tony and a white female cub that didn't survive and that he didn't purchase any from Robert Baudy, or sell any to a Swedish Zoo. Von Uhl who may have erroneously believed that white tigers were an inevitable result of line-breeding (meaning inbreeding).

Alan Shoemaker, Columbia, South Carolina, (Riverbanks Zoo, studbook keeper for the leopard, and part of the IUCN Cat Specialty Group) believes there are pure Amur white tigers in captivity today. Robert Baudy claimed that his white tigers are of pure Amur stock. Robert Baudy apparently realised that his Amur tigers had white genes after one sold to Marwell Zoo developed white spots (confirmed by Marwell Zoo, but likely to be vitiligo). Baudy sold a pair of white, supposedly pure Amur, tigers, Raisa and Gorby, to the Beauval Zoo in France and some of Raisa and Gorby's offspring went to a Dutch zoo and some to Colchester Zoo, England. For details of Baudy's tigers and his breeding activities see White Tiger Breeders: Robert Baudy, Josip Marcan. In brief, Baudy admitted that white Siberian cub Boris was supposedly the product of "generations of "cross breeding and line-breeding" which means his colour must have originated from a white Bengal, folowed by extensive crossing of each generation to pure Siberian tigers. Bill Zeigler, curator for Miami Metrozoo, said "if both Boris' parents are pure Siberian, then the tiger may indeed be one of a kind, but if it has any Bengal in it at all, it would be no more rare than ours."

The rather shaggy white tigers at Tigerhomes (USA) are also described as Siberian (Amur) white tigers. I also have personal correspondence relating to a pair of privately owned Amur tigers that produced a stillborn white cub. Baudy's Amur stock was almost certainly tainted with Bengal genes.

In 1979, TH Reed asked Robert Baudy to breed Rewati (daughter of Ramana and Mohini) with one of his tigers, but it appears that no cubs resulted.

Kubla also has living descendants that are registered as purebred Amur tigers though it is possible that three-quarter Amur tigers sold through Hunts Brothers International Animal Exchange, in Ferndale, Michigan, might have been mistakenly for pure Amur tigers, resulting in the white gene entering Amur lines in zoos. The Amur tiger is sometimes mistakenly called the "White Siberian Tiger".

There were allegedly white Siberian tigers owned by Pat Anthony at Jungleland in Thousand Oaks, California in 1972 or 1973 (the supposed source of von Uhls part-Siberian tigers either Ural or Genghis did spend time at Jungleland), however Jungleland (a lion farm) closed to the public in 1969. Jungleland still existed, albeit not as a public attraction, in 1974 (Jan. 7th, 1974 page 4 of The Circus Report: "John Cuneo is wintering at the Great Western Livestock Exposition in Los Angeles CA and not at Thousand Oaks as was previously reported.") According to Wade Burck, when the Hawthorn Circus went back to Mexico in 1977, Tony was left behind at Thousand Oaks (Jungleland) instead of at Cincinnati Zoo. It s possible Ika, Ari, and Frosty might also have been left there. It might have been used that year as a holding area by Hunts Bros. Although Ivan Henry said that Pat Anthony had two white tigers at Jungleland in 1972 or 1973, perhaps he actually saw Tony (and maybe other Hawthorn tigers) there in 1976.

It was also alleged that am "amateur" in Polack Bros Circus had two white tigers in 1973 or 1974, but these are not mentioned in the authoritative The Circus report, however there are adverts for Henry Thomas "America's youngest tiger trainer" with 10 Bengal and Siberian tigers (another advert says "Royal Bengal tigers") andthis might be the "amateur" Ivan Henry claimed had two white tigers in the Polack Bros Circus in 1973.

The Orlando Sentinel, 16th July, 1978 (p13) claimed that there was a baby white Siberian tiger at the West Berlin Zoo. If this was a Siberian (rather than mixed blood), this would have been a case of fever coat where the pigment had not properly developed due to high temperature in the womb.

Purebred white Siberian (Amur) tigers were born to studbook-registered captive Amur tigers in the USA (Boris, 1985) and Korea (Be-La and Baekwoon, 1999).

As mentioned earlier, Baudy supposedly realised that his Amur tigers had white genes after one sold to Marwell Zoo later developed white spots. He had one offspring from Kubla (Amur) and Susie (Bengal, carrying the white gene), born 1969, which he sold to a zoo in Paris, France. His white Amur breeding programme began in 1968. He is known to have obtained an orange, possibly heterozygous cub from Julius von Uhl, this was an offspring of Kubla and Susie, born in August 1969. A cub from their Feb 1969 litter is also unaccounted for. Susie's offspring could have introduced the white gene. Backcrossing carriers of the white gene to pure Amur tigers and inbreeding the progeny would produce white tigers that looked like pure Amur tigers. Although Baudy's Amur foundation stock was studbook-registered this does not preclude genetic contamination further back.

Although he had many studbook-registered Amurs, Baudy also cross-bred his tigers. At the suggestion of TH Reed, white tigress Rewati (Mohini x Ramana) went to Baudy's Savage Kingdom in January 1979 where she was bred to an unregistered Amur tiger after failing to mate with either of his Bengal tigers. Rewati did not produce any cubs while with Baudy. Baudy also had connections with Julius von Uhl of the Hawthorn Circus and they may have been business partners in business partners in "The Siberian Tiger Foundation." In June 1979, four Bengal/Amur cross tigers (born 1974) were removed from Julius von Uhl's Fort Bengali along with 5 Fort Bengali lions. The lions were handed over to Robert Baudy by the Federal Agency Service and it's possible the Bengal/Amur cross tigers also went to him.

Most captive Amur tigers came from Russian stock (hence the name "Siberian") where white tigers had not been reported. Baudy's foundation tigers came from the Korea/China part of their range where white tigers had been reported historically. It is possible that wild-caught orange tigers from that region might have carried the white gene. The later Amur tiger studbooks removed a number of Baudy's Amur tigers as white gene carriers (and therefore hybrids) when white cubs were born to studbook-registered Amur tigers in Seoul, South Korea.

In 1960-61 Baudy obtained 3 pure-bred Amur tigers - Tara, Doutchka and Mandchu - from Birmingham Zoo, Alabama. Their parents - King and Mary – were wild-caught Amur tigers from Vladivostok. King and Mary's offspring were repeatedly bred together at Baudy's Rare Feline Breeding Compound (Florida) and at zoos in Colorado Springs and Oklahoma zoo, but no white tigers were ever born. He obtained a wild-caught Amur tiger - Korea - in January 1961 from a French dealer. This may have come from the North Korea/Manchuria border or from the North Korea/South Korea border where white tigers had once existed. A further pair of Amur tigers came from the Ueno Zoo in Tokyo whose tigers were descended from (probably North) Korean stock. Baudy did not register his Japan tigers or their progeny in studbooks, and registered only one "Korean tiger" litter, but many of his Amur tiger litters were registered. Baudy bred Korea to Doutchka resulting in one registered cub, a male named Bamarka (Dec 1965). Korea died soon after and that is his only known progeny. Baudy did not inbreed Korea's descendants, and they did not produce any white offspring. Korea is also an ancestor of Seoul Zoo's white tigers.

In 1985, a pair of Baudy's apparently pure-bred Amur tigers produced a white cub named Boris. A pure-bred white Amur tiger would be extremely rare and valuable as all other white tigers had Bengal ancestry. The Orlando Sentinel, 4th August 1985 reported that Boris was born at Center Hill in June 1985 "after generations of cross-breeding. . . . The cub is the first of what Baudy hopes will be a continuing breed of white Amur tigers. Although about 40 valuable white Bengal tigers – a species from India – are known in the world, the Amur tiger has never given birth to a healthy white cub . . . If Boris is purebred, the cub would be the first white Amur tiger in captivity, said Ron Macgill, assistant curator of the Miami Metrozoo . . . proving the purity of Boris Siberian strain is next to impossible, Macgill said. Baudy, he said, is one of the best exotic cat breeders in the country. But Macgill questioned his ability to be positive about the cub's ancestry." (Five all-white Amur cubs from the same mother were apparently stillborn, but I have not been able to verify this. )

According to the Tampa Tribune, 2nd August 1985, Boris's parents were both yellow Amur tigers and Boris was the successful result of line-breeding and cross-breeding initiated by Baudy in 1968, "mating Siberian tigers that possessed some white genes." The only way Baudy could known that they had white genes was if they ultimately traced back to a white tiger so the white genes likely came from a Bengal tiger. Baudy intended to breed Boris to his half-sister who apparently had white genes, the only way Baudy could know for sure that the half-sister had white genes was if one of her was a white tiger. He made this statement in 1985 when the half-sister was new-born.

In the 1980s Baudy began to produce white tigers in earnest and stopped registering his Amur tigers in the studbook. It's likely that people were questioning the purity of his white "Amur" tigers, and it's possible he brought in unregistered breeding stock. He had sold/transferred some tigers from the line that produced Boris and he acquired some of their cubs. This is normal zoo practice – the transferred tigers are outcrossed and some of the offspring go to Baudy to add genetic diversity to his breeding programme.

Boris is not recorded in the studbook, but Kubla/Susie ancestry seems likely. When Susie's cubs were bred together white tigers appeared. Baudy claimed that Boris's mother had been born at the Oklahoma Zoo 6 years earlier (1979) but the Oklahoma Zoo had no breeding Amur female at that time. A claim of pure Amur ancestry made Boris more valuable and a far bigger draw to the public. Baudy's white "Siberian" tigers went to zoos and circuses where they were billed (probably depending on appearance) as Siberian or Bengal or just "white tiger". They were bred to known Bengal/Siberian hybrids, which meant the offspring couldn't be registered.

In 1977 Baudy had obtained Amur male, Sasha, born to Kubla's sister Nina. If Sasha sired cubs they were not registered. Nina's descendants were all outcrossed and no white offspring were recorded. Kubla was bred to Amur tigress Katrina and all offspring (none white) were registered as Amur tigers. Kubla's grand-daughter, Karla, went to the Seoul Zoo where she was bred to Hodoli. Inbreeding Karla x Hodoli offspring resulted in white cubs. Karla's mother, Kathryn, was bred to two of her sons, and their offspring were bred together, but produced no white cubs. This rules out Kubla's line as carriers of the white gene (otherwise his repeated matings to heterozygous Susie would have produced white cubs) and puts Karla's ancestry in doubt.

More tenuously, Boris (the white Amur cub born 1985, parentage unrecorded) might have come from Volga's brother Igor mated to a daughter of Tchekoff and Nadia, but that makes the assumption that Korea - Tchekoff's great-grandsire and Nadia's sire -carried the white gene. Volga had been bred at Robert Baudy's Rare Feline Breeding Compound in Florida, USA.

Chart 3.1e: Kubla's line and the Seoul Zoo White Tigers (large image, opens in new window)

In May 1999 and September 2000, at Seoul Zoo, Korea, a pair of registered Amur tigers produced white female cubs named Be-La [Vera] and Hite [aka Baekwoon]. According to dongA.com on 29th December 2009, Hite's original name was 'White,' because of her fur colour, but the Kyungpook National University intern who was raising Baekwoon mispronounced it as 'Hite' (the name of a Korean beer). As a result, her two siblings were named 'Lager' and 'Cass.' The zoo applied to register the cubs in the Amur Tiger Studbook, but because the white gene suggested contamination (albeit distant) with Bengal tiger genes there was genetic testing to determine their genealogy. Seoul Zoo's Amur tigers had come from the USA so the finger was pointed at a tigress called Volga/Teeger whose son, Hodoli, had been sent to the Seoul Zoo in 1986. It was decided that Volga's sire could not be Amur tiger Tchekoff (as recorded in the books) but a different unidentified tiger with Bengal genes. After the white cubs were born Seoul Zoo neutered the hybrid tigers. Volga's line was not removed from the studbooks, but they were marked as hybrids and not to be bred from. Volga herself was not gene tested. Purity is a human concept and any Bengal genes distant enough that for all intents and purposes Volga and her offspring are Amur tigers.

In July 2004, during a rare period of cordial relations, the Seoul Zoo and the Pyongyang Central Zoo exchanged animals. Seoul zoo sent white female Amur tiger Vera (Be-la), the older sister of Hite, to Pyongyang Central Zoo where she was bred with other white tigers (Bengal or Bengal/Amur crosses). In August 2006, Vera produced 3 white cubs according to a South Korean Internet news report in 2007. In North Korea, the Amur tiger is a symbol of their supreme leader, Kim Yong Un, and there is a superstition in East Asia that white animals are spiritual beings. Pyongyang Zoo probably breeds a lot of white tigers.

White tigers in the wild in China and Korea are less well documented than those in India. India was part of the British Empire and British trophy hunters targeted white tigers. In China, the white tiger was highly symbolic so trophy hunters were unwelcome. Ancient records, as far back as 400 BCE, mention white tigers and in 73 BCE a white tiger was presented to Emperor Xuan. There were sporadic sightings up until the 17th century, the later sightings being relayed to the west by missionaries. The earlier sightings were recorded in Chinese records. With Chinese records it's necessary to sift factual accounts from mythology because accounts are full of references to the "black dragon," "golden pheasant," "white tiger" etc as part of Chinese superstition.

Because their fur is longer and usually paler than the tawny Bengal tiger, Siberian tigers were often referred to as "white" in newspaper reports. For example the London Evening News, 1st May 1934 reported: "WHITE TIGERS Siberian Hunters Report a Bag of 23. Moscow, Tuesday. Hunters in the far east of Siberia have reported enormous bags this season. Besides quantities of sable, silver fox and mink, they report the killing of 23 white Siberian tigers - most dreaded and rarest of animals." It is very unlikely that there were 23 genuinely white tigers.

An earlier report (that was about Indian tigers) also mentioned white tigers seen in Siberia. According to the Kerry Evening Post, 1st March 1871: "At a recent meeting of the Zoological Society, the skin of a white variety of the tiger, from the Mirapau district [India], was exhibited. There have for a long time been rumours of white tigers having been seen in the northern parts of Siberia."

In 1938 a genuinely white Siberian tiger was reported in the Skegness News, 14th September 1938 (and many other British newspapers during September 1938): "A dead-white tiger has been found in Siberia. The animal had no stripes and naturalists who examined it when it was shot by hunters say that it is the only beast of its type on record." This appears to have been an albino.

The Overland China Mail of 17th October 1881 mentioned the land of the black and white tigers in relation to "border lands" which the translator suggested referred to Thailand and India, but which could refer to the Changbai Mountain region of Manchuria or the border with Korea. 'We published the other day a short account of the stone slab said to have been recently up turned by the dredging operations in the river near Pao-ting Fu, giving the Chinese inscription in full. Of this inscription, a correspondent has now attempted a free translation, to the following effect: - " At one of the Lung She [Dragon and Serpent] period - i.e. 1880-1, 1893-4, and so on every twenty years - a great war will break out; they will struggle for existence, for final mastership. Prosperous years will be wanting. Over all China will reign one Emperor. Money will have double its value. The next generation will hold the border lands; such as the land of the white parrot, (the Indian Archipelago) the land of the great lion (Ceylon and Southern India), that of the great hare, (perhaps Siberia,) the lands of the black and white tigers, (perhaps Siam and India). These all with China will revert to the Manchu Dynasty. Then two men will reign over land and sea. The western provinces will be in a state of devastation, and there will be greater distress than there was under the Han Dynasty. The poor will be numerous for a long time, but wealth and honour will not fail to the Emperor." '

Many US newspapers used "Siberian" as a synonym for "white" or referred to "White Siberian Tigers" because they equate white with snowy regions. Others are the Siberian-type tigers descended from cross-breeding. Intriguingly, a report in the Tallahassee Democrat, 10th September 2006 (pages 1D and 5D) refer to Gloria Johnson, Cougar Ridge Education Center's white Siberian tiger. "Siberian tigers are rare, Johnson said, but white Siberians are extremely rare." And "Most of the few (white Siberians) left are found in northern China and South Korea."

Everland Zoological Gardens, South Korea imported three Amur tigers from the Philadelphia zoo in 1987: females DOLLY=DULLI (Studbook No 1992), CALLIE=KELLI (Studbook No 2888) and male CZAR (Studbook No 2961). Czar is now considered a hybrid which means Everland's stock is based on a foundation sire that may carry Bengal genes. Everland increased their Amur tiger stock by inbreeding these three and their descendants, but Czar probably had Bengal genes from his grandmother Volga/Teeger, though there do not seem to have been white cubs from inbreeding his offspring. Everland's Studbook 4743 is known to be the grandson of Czar and, therefore, a great-grandson of Volga/Teeger (though this individual has a studbook number it did not appear in the 2012 studbook) and their Amur Tiger, Taegeuk (Studbook No 4746) was used to map the Amur Tiger genome, but would also be descended from Czar - this means the Amur tiger genome may have been sequenced from an individual that carries genes from a Bengal ancestor.

UNKNOWN WHITE TIGER LINEAGES

In 1980 a white tiger cub was born at the Racine Zoo in Wisconsin from an accidental father/daughter mating, though the cub was apparently killed by the father. The mother was later used to breed more white cubs. They were not known to have carried the white gene and it is uncertain how they relate to the other known white lineages. The same is true of the white tigers in the Asian Circus in India. Everland Zoo (Yongin Farm zoo), Seoul, South Korea, bought white tigers from a private breeder, Betty Young of Arkansas; these are descended from the Racine Zoo (Wisconsin) tigers. Everland Zoo (Yongin Farm Zoo) also have white tigers from Omaha and Cincinnati zoos, and have bred white ligers (lion/tiger hybrids) possibly from white tigers and leucistic lionesses. Young also acquired white tigers from Cincinnati Zoo.

WHITE TIGER CUBS THAT CHANGE COLOUR

There are records of cubs that are born white but later change to a normal orange colour. This phenomenon is known as fever coat and is due to conditions in the womb preventing melanin from being properly deposited in the hairs of the foetus. It is well documented in domestic cats and has been observed in captive jaguars and leopards. It most often occurs when the mother is ill or stressed which is likely to be the case in some captive tigers and is related to the temperature in the womb. Why so few reports of white cubs changing colour? If the cubs were born sickly and died before their first moult then they would have been recorded as white tigers.

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