http://bigcat.bigcatchat.com/service/getFeed.kickAction?quantity=25 New blogs from Watari on Chat Big Cats and Other Animals Too Fri, 16 Apr 2010 23:02:31 GMT Fri, 16 Apr 2010 23:02:31 GMT LaWanna.Mitchell@bigcatrescue.org (BigCatChat) LaWanna.Mitchell@bigcatrescue.org (BigCatChat) KickApps Feed Builder 2010-04-16T23:02:31Z 2 http://bigcat.bigcatchat.com/service/searchEverything.kickAction?as=23189&sortType=recent 0 http://bigcat.bigcatchat.com/_Little-White-Tiger-Lie-The-scholarship-version/BLOG/2302549/23189.html It's a bit more refined and cleaned up than the original. I like it more. :D (I left the citations in because I'm too lazy to take them out :P)~~~~~    Imagine this: It's a bright sunny day, and you decide to pay the local zoo a visit. You pay the fee, enter, and enjoy the wonderful and strange worlds of exotic animals from places like Asia, Africa, and South America. You see monkeys swinging from branch to branch, pandas placidly chewing on bamboo, and jaguars excitedly pacing back and forth in their enclosures. Then you come to the tigers. Like other park-goers, you are in awe of the ferocious beauty of these huge cats, and can't help but stare as a white tiger suddenly ambushes an orange one, and they begin to tumble and play. You take out your camera, snap a few pictures, and press the button to go back and see what you've taken. That's when you notice. The white tiger's eyes appear to be... crossed? That can't be right. You look again. No, that tiger's eyes are definitely crossed. You look up at the tiger and start to wonder why such a rare animal just so happens to be found at an everyday zoo, and at what price did his beauty come?    Sadly, this is not the thought process that 99% of the public goes through. At a regular zoo (if it can be called that), the public is shown what they want to see: a creature that has only a one in 10,000 chance of being born in the wild, and is magically produced just for that zoo. The white tiger is not all that it seems. If a white tiger were to be born in the wild, it would not be fit to survive. Tigers evolved to have orange coats in order to blend in with their surroundings and to be able to hide from their prey. A white tiger is completely unable to hide and fend for itself, and will likely die from starvation in a matter of weeks. Because nature works in such ways, only the strongest survive, and the white tiger would quickly be eliminated from the gene pool. However, this is not the case today. The fact that humans were even able to catch a wild white tiger was a miracle all its own.   The sordid past of today's captive white tigers begins with the last white tiger in history to have existed before human greed decided to doom the marked species. Mohan was a white male tiger captured in India in 1951. The Maharaja owning him desired more white tigers, but failed to produce more by breeding him with a normal colored tigress. It was then the Maharaja’s brother came up with an ingenious plan: to breed Mohan with the tiger’s own daughter. This was a success, and all four of their cubs were born a glorious white. Having discovered the key, the Maharaja bred Mohan to his granddaughter-slash-daughter successively, until he died in 1969. In the meantime, Mohan’s descendants were consecutively inbred, and continued to produce white cubs. The reason this works “is because the white color is the result of a double recessive allele (gene)” (Baskin), and because all captive white tigers come from one tiger, there is nowhere else to acquire the gene from; “thus the white color can only be produced by inbreeding one tiger carrying the recessive gene for the white color to another tiger carrying the same recessive gene” (Baskin). Remember: Continuous inbreeding always produces healthy, happy, beautiful cats to show to the world... right?          Though the white tigers you see performing on stage or lounging in zoos appear to be healthy and full of vitality, people rarely learn that they are the lucky ones. The real white tiger is nothing like them. Whether it’s noticeable or not, all white tigers have crossed eyes because the gene carrying their color “causes the optic nerve to be wired on the wrong side of [their] brain” (Baskin). Other than being cross-eyed, they are often born with debilitating deformities, such as cleft palates (a condition in which the two parts of the skull that make up the roof of the mouth are not completely joined), scoliosis, immune deficiency, mental impairments, depression, and according to Big Cat Rescue, “the number of tigers that have to be produced and disposed of in order to fill the public’s desire to see white tigers on display is staggering” (Baskin). Often “30 to 60 cats must be destroyed in order [sic] in get one profitable white tiger cub” (Where’s the Pride?).    Big Cat Rescue is an “educational sanctuary” based in Tampa, Florida, that is dedicated to rescuing big cats from abusive homes and unfit owners. Since the early 90s, the acclaimed non-profit organization has taken in and cared for hundreds of neglected big cats. They have also raised awareness of issues concerning such exotic and beautiful creatures, as the world’s greatest lie: the white tiger. Those who breed white tigers, do so out of either avarice or simply ignorance. Big Cat Rescue founder, Carole Baskin, writes, “The inbreeding results in many defects, early deaths, still births and, as could be expected, the cats are not very bright which is why they are preferred for entertainment purposes” (Baskin).  Prized for entertainment value, “they are far more dependant upon their masters” (Baskin) than the average tiger. In a perfect world, we could expect to hear some good explanations from a certain Vegas-centered mystical duo. But they ARE just another animal that God created especially for humans to enjoy, after all. Even though “only one in four cubs will be white, and of those, 80% will be stillborn” (Where’s the Pride?), owners continue to breed them, casting their cats’ health to the winds of fate. It leaves one to wonder; why on earth did I not hear of this sooner, and why doesn’t the rest of the public know about this?     Quite simple. Owners of white tigers don’t want you to know about their breeding so they can make profits off of them by marketing them as an “endangered species”. Ever heard of the “Royal White Siberian Tiger”? Just another embellished phrase puffed up, packaged, and sold to the world that is kept out of the light. I, despite considering myself a relatively well-informed individual, have only been aware of this scam for all but two months. Even the valiant Animal Planet, dedicated to helping animals for over 13 years, refuses to acknowledge this problem.     In 2007, Animal Planet aired a week-long series of specials dedicated to tigers in order to promote awareness of their plight, called “Tiger Week”. One program aired during this time was titled Awesome Pawsome, and chronicled the first year of four tiger cubs born at Tiger Island, a theme park near Brisbane, Australia. The cubs were born to a white male, and an orange female. One would think that because the male is white, and the female is orange, it is logical (and more ethical) for their cubs to all be born orange. After all, what kind of theme park would purposely breed previously inbred tigers? Surprisingly enough, only one cub was orange, one cub was white, and the other two were “tabby”, a color that appears half orange, half white. According to Dreamworld, the owner of Tiger Island, the tigers at the park are there to “raise money every day to save their own species” (Helping To Save the Tigers). I wonder how Tiger Island can save tigers in the wild, when they can’t even save tigers in captivity. Interestingly enough, they give no mention as to why they continue to let their non-purebred tigers breed. Sooner or later, they’re going to end up with too many tigers, and not enough space.          Other than their horrendous record of inbreeding, white tigers deteriorate the tiger specie as a whole not only because of the defects that come with their coloring, but also the little-known fact that they are actually the result of “an original Siberian / Bengal cross breeding” (Baskin). If any breeding of captive tigers is to be allowed, the tigers should at least be from one subspecies, and with several of these hybrids having disappeared into the wild, purebred tigers could very well be in more danger than their species. Rather than “saving the white tiger”, as somany blindly think we should, we should completely outlaw their breeding. We shouldn’t even allow people to own them for spite (Case in point, a man in Louisiana has been allowed by the government to keep his tiger on display at a truck stop, in a crammed cement and steel cage). The United States, let alone the world, needs to enforce strict legislation in order to ensure the survival of one of earth’s most majestic species. Mohandas Gandhi said it best when he noted “the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals” (Cotner 116). It's a bit more refined and cleaned up than the original. I like it more. :D (I left the citations in because I'm too lazy to take them out :P)~~~~~    Imagine this: It's a bright sunny day, and you decide to pay the local zoo a visit. You pay the fee, enter, and enjoy the wonderful and strange worlds of exotic animals from places like Asia, Africa, and South America. You see monkeys swinging from branch to branch, pandas placidly chewing on bamboo, and jaguars excitedly pacing back and forth in their enclosures. Then you come to the tigers. Like other park-goers, you are in awe of the ferocious beauty of these huge cats, and can't help but stare as a white tiger suddenly ambushes an orange one, and they begin to tumble and play. You take out your camera, snap a few pictures, and press the button to go back and see what you've taken. That's when you notice. The white tiger's eyes appear to be... crossed? That can't be right. You look again. No, that tiger's eyes are definitely crossed. You look up at the tiger and start to wonder why such a rare animal just so happens to be found at an everyday zoo, and at what price did his beauty come?    Sadly, this is not the thought process that 99% of the public goes through. At a regular zoo (if it can be called that), the public is shown what they want to see: a creature that has only a one in 10,000 chance of being born in the wild, and is magically produced just for that zoo. The white tiger is not all that it seems. If a white tiger were to be born in the wild, it would not be fit to survive. Tigers evolved to have orange coats in order to blend in with their surroundings and to be able to hide from their prey. A white tiger is completely unable to hide and fend for itself, and will likely die from starvation in a matter of weeks. Because nature works in such ways, only the strongest survive, and the white tiger would quickly be eliminated from the gene pool. However, this is not the case today. The fact that humans were even able to catch a wild white tiger was a miracle all its own.   The sordid past of today's captive white tigers begins with the last white tiger in history to have existed before human greed decided to doom the marked species. Mohan was a white male tiger captured in India in 1951. The Maharaja owning him desired more white tigers, but failed to produce more by breeding him with a normal colored tigress. It was then the Maharaja’s brother came up with an ingenious plan: to breed Mohan with the tiger’s own daughter. This was a success, and all four of their cubs were born a glorious white. Having discovered the key, the Maharaja bred Mohan to his granddaughter-slash-daughter successively, until he died in 1969. In the meantime, Mohan’s descendants were consecutively inbred, and continued to produce white cubs. The reason this works “is because the white color is the result of a double recessive allele (gene)” (Baskin), and because all captive white tigers come from one tiger, there is nowhere else to acquire the gene from; “thus the white color can only be produced by inbreeding one tiger carrying the recessive gene for the white color to another tiger carrying the same recessive gene” (Baskin). Remember: Continuous inbreeding always produces healthy, happy, beautiful cats to show to the world... right?          Though the white tigers you see performing on stage or lounging in zoos appear to be healthy and full of vitality, people rarely learn that they are the lucky ones. The real white tiger is nothing like them. Whether it’s noticeable or not, all white tigers have crossed eyes because the gene carrying their color “causes the optic nerve to be wired on the wrong side of [their] brain” (Baskin). Other than being cross-eyed, they are often born with debilitating deformities, such as cleft palates (a condition in which the two parts of the skull that make up the roof of the mouth are not completely joined), scoliosis, immune deficiency, mental impairments, depression, and according to Big Cat Rescue, “the number of tigers that have to be produced and disposed of in order to fill the public’s desire to see white tigers on display is staggering” (Baskin). Often “30 to 60 cats must be destroyed in order [sic] in get one profitable white tiger cub” (Where’s the Pride?).    Big Cat Rescue is an “educational sanctuary” based in Tampa, Florida, that is dedicated to rescuing big cats from abusive homes and unfit owners. Since the early 90s, the acclaimed non-profit organization has taken in and cared for hundreds of neglected big cats. They have also raised awareness of issues concerning such exotic and beautiful creatures, as the world’s greatest lie: the white tiger. Those who breed white tigers, do so out of either avarice or simply ignorance. Big Cat Rescue founder, Carole Baskin, writes, “The inbreeding results in many defects, early deaths, still births and, as could be expected, the cats are not very bright which is why they are preferred for entertainment purposes” (Baskin).  Prized for entertainment value, “they are far more dependant upon their masters” (Baskin) than the average tiger. In a perfect world, we could expect to hear some good explanations from a certain Vegas-centered mystical duo. But they ARE just another animal that God created especially for humans to enjoy, after all. Even though “only one in four cubs will be white, and of those, 80% will be stillborn” (Where’s the Pride?), owners continue to breed them, casting their cats’ health to the winds of fate. It leaves one to wonder; why on earth did I not hear of this sooner, and why doesn’t the rest of the public know about this?     Quite simple. Owners of white tigers don’t want you to know about their breeding so they can make profits off of them by marketing them as an “endangered species”. Ever heard of the “Royal White Siberian Tiger”? Just another embellished phrase puffed up, packaged, and sold to the world that is kept out of the light. I, despite considering myself a relatively well-informed individual, have only been aware of this scam for all but two months. Even the valiant Animal Planet, dedicated to helping animals for over 13 years, refuses to acknowledge this problem.     In 2007, Animal Planet aired a week-long series of specials dedicated to tigers in order to promote awareness of their plight, called “Tiger Week”. One program aired during this time was titled Awesome Pawsome, and chronicled the first year of four tiger cubs born at Tiger Island, a theme park near Brisbane, Australia. The cubs were born to a white male, and an orange female. One would think that because the male is white, and the female is orange, it is logical (and more ethical) for their cubs to all be born orange. After all, what kind of theme park would purposely breed previously inbred tigers? Surprisingly enough, only one cub was orange, one cub was white, and the other two were “tabby”, a color that appears half orange, half white. According to Dreamworld, the owner of Tiger Island, the tigers at the park are there to “raise money every day to save their own species” (Helping To Save the Tigers). I wonder how Tiger Island can save tigers in the wild, when they can’t even save tigers in captivity. Interestingly enough, they give no mention as to why they continue to let their non-purebred tigers breed. Sooner or later, they’re going to end up with too many tigers, and not enough space.          Other than their horrendous record of inbreeding, white tigers deteriorate the tiger specie as a whole not only because of the defects that come with their coloring, but also the little-known fact that they are actually the result of “an original Siberian / Bengal cross breeding” (Baskin). If any breeding of captive tigers is to be allowed, the tigers should at least be from one subspecies, and with several of these hybrids having disappeared into the wild, purebred tigers could very well be in more danger than their species. Rather than “saving the white tiger”, as somany blindly think we should, we should completely outlaw their breeding. We shouldn’t even allow people to own them for spite (Case in point, a man in Louisiana has been allowed by the government to keep his tiger on display at a truck stop, in a crammed cement and steel cage). The United States, let alone the world, needs to enforce strict legislation in order to ensure the survival of one of earth’s most majestic species. Mohandas Gandhi said it best when he noted “the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals” (Cotner 116). Fri, 16 Apr 2010 23:02:31 GMT http://bigcat.bigcatchat.com/_Little-White-Tiger-Lie-The-scholarship-version/BLOG/2302549/23189.html Watari 2010-04-16T23:02:31Z Big Cats Chat Big Cats and Other Animals Too It's a bit more refined and cleaned up than the original. I like it more. :D (I left the citations in because I'm too lazy to take them out :P)~~~~~    Imagine this: It's a bright sunny day, and you decide to pay the local zoo a visit. You pay the fee, enter, and enjoy the wonderful and strange worlds of exotic animals from places like Asia, Africa, and South America. You see monkeys swinging from branch to branch, pandas placidly chewing on bamboo, and jaguars excitedly pacing back and forth in their enclosures. Then you come to the tigers. Like other park-goers, you are in awe of the ferocious beauty of these huge cats, and can't help but stare as a white tiger suddenly ambushes an orange one, and they begin to tumble and play. You take out your camera, snap a few pictures, and press the button to go back and see what you've taken. That's when you notice. The white tiger's eyes appear to be... crossed? That can't be right. You look again. No, that tiger's eyes are definitely crossed. You look up at the tiger and start to wonder why such a rare animal just so happens to be found at an everyday zoo, and at what price did his beauty come?    Sadly, this is not the thought process that 99% of the public goes through. At a regular zoo (if it can be called that), the public is shown what they want to see: a creature that has only a one in 10,000 chance of being born in the wild, and is magically produced just for that zoo. The white tiger is not all that it seems. If a white tiger were to be born in the wild, it would not be fit to survive. Tigers evolved to have orange coats in order to blend in with their surroundings and to be able to hide from their prey. A white tiger is completely unable to hide and fend for itself, and will likely die from starvation in a matter of weeks. Because nature works in such ways, only the strongest survive, and the white tiger would quickly be eliminated from the gene pool. However, this is not the case today. The fact that humans were even able to catch a wild white tiger was a miracle all its own.   The sordid past of today's captive white tigers begins with the last white tiger in history to have existed before human greed decided to doom the marked species. Mohan was a white male tiger captured in India in 1951. The Maharaja owning him desired more white tigers, but failed to produce more by breeding him with a normal colored tigress. It was then the Maharaja’s brother came up with an ingenious plan: to breed Mohan with the tiger’s own daughter. This was a success, and all four of their cubs were born a glorious white. Having discovered the key, the Maharaja bred Mohan to his granddaughter-slash-daughter successively, until he died in 1969. In the meantime, Mohan’s descendants were consecutively inbred, and continued to produce white cubs. The reason this works “is because the white color is the result of a double recessive allele (gene)” (Baskin), and because all captive white tigers come from one tiger, there is nowhere else to acquire the gene from; “thus the white color can only be produced by inbreeding one tiger carrying the recessive gene for the white color to another tiger carrying the same recessive gene” (Baskin). Remember: Continuous inbreeding always produces healthy, happy, beautiful cats to show to the world... right?          Though the white tigers you see performing on stage or lounging in zoos appear to be healthy and full of vitality, people rarely learn that they are the lucky ones. The real white tiger is nothing like them. Whether it’s noticeable or not, all white tigers have crossed eyes because the gene carrying their color “causes the optic nerve to be wired on the wrong side of [their] brain” (Baskin). Other than being cross-eyed, they are often born with debilitating deformities, such as cleft palates (a condition in which the two parts of the skull that make up the roof of the mouth are not completely joined), scoliosis, immune deficiency, mental impairments, depression, and according to Big Cat Rescue, “the number of tigers that have to be produced and disposed of in order to fill the public’s desire to see white tigers on display is staggering” (Baskin). Often “30 to 60 cats must be destroyed in order [sic] in get one profitable white tiger cub” (Where’s the Pride?).    Big Cat Rescue is an “educational sanctuary” based in Tampa, Florida, that is dedicated to rescuing big cats from abusive homes and unfit owners. Since the early 90s, the acclaimed non-profit organization has taken in and cared for hundreds of neglected big cats. They have also raised awareness of issues concerning such exotic and beautiful creatures, as the world’s greatest lie: the white tiger. Those who breed white tigers, do so out of either avarice or simply ignorance. Big Cat Rescue founder, Carole Baskin, writes, “The inbreeding results in many defects, early deaths, still births and, as could be expected, the cats are not very bright which is why they are preferred for entertainment purposes” (Baskin).  Prized for entertainment value, “they are far more dependant upon their masters” (Baskin) than the average tiger. In a perfect world, we could expect to hear some good explanations from a certain Vegas-centered mystical duo. But they ARE just another animal that God created especially for humans to enjoy, after all. Even though “only one in four cubs will be white, and of those, 80% will be stillborn” (Where’s the Pride?), owners continue to breed them, casting their cats’ health to the winds of fate. It leaves one to wonder; why on earth did I not hear of this sooner, and why doesn’t the rest of the public know about this?     Quite simple. Owners of white tigers don’t want you to know about their breeding so they can make profits off of them by marketing them as an “endangered species”. Ever heard of the “Royal White Siberian Tiger”? Just another embellished phrase puffed up, packaged, and sold to the world that is kept out of the light. I, despite considering myself a relatively well-informed individual, have only been aware of this scam for all but two months. Even the valiant Animal Planet, dedicated to helping animals for over 13 years, refuses to acknowledge this problem.     In 2007, Animal Planet aired a week-long series of specials dedicated to tigers in order to promote awareness of their plight, called “Tiger Week”. One program aired during this time was titled Awesome Pawsome, and chronicled the first year of four tiger cubs born at Tiger Island, a theme park near Brisbane, Australia. The cubs were born to a white male, and an orange female. One would think that because the male is white, and the female is orange, it is logical (and more ethical) for their cubs to all be born orange. After all, what kind of theme park would purposely breed previously inbred tigers? Surprisingly enough, only one cub was orange, one cub was white, and the other two were “tabby”, a color that appears half orange, half white. According to Dreamworld, the owner of Tiger Island, the tigers at the park are there to “raise money every day to save their own species” (Helping To Save the Tigers). I wonder how Tiger Island can save tigers in the wild, when they can’t even save tigers in captivity. Interestingly enough, they give no mention as to why they continue to let their non-purebred tigers breed. Sooner or later, they’re going to end up with too many tigers, and not enough space.          Other than their horrendous record of inbreeding, white tigers deteriorate the tiger specie as a whole not only because of the defects that come with their coloring, but also the little-known fact that they are actually the result of “an original Siberian / Bengal cross breeding” (Baskin). If any breeding of captive tigers is to be allowed, the tigers should at least be from one subspecies, and with several of these hybrids having disappeared into the wild, purebred tigers could very well be in more danger than their species. Rather than “saving the white tiger”, as somany blindly think we should, we should completely outlaw their breeding. We shouldn’t even allow people to own them for spite (Case in point, a man in Louisiana has been allowed by the government to keep his tiger on display at a truck stop, in a crammed cement and steel cage). The United States, let alone the world, needs to enforce strict legislation in order to ensure the survival of one of earth’s most majestic species. Mohandas Gandhi said it best when he noted “the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals” (Cotner 116). animal, big cats, essay, fraud, island, lie, planet, tiger, white nonadult false Little White Tiger Lie (The scholarship version) text blog animal,big cats,essay,fraud,island,lie,planet,tiger,white 125 1 5.0 http://bigcat.bigcatchat.com/service/displayKickPlace.kickAction?u=20519689&as=23189 http://media.kickstatic.com/kickapps/images/23189/photos/PHOTO_7838813_23189_20519689_ap_160X120.jpg false United States MI 1 Big Cats 0 2302549 20519689 Lynx 10375 http://bigcat.bigcatchat.com/_Little-White-Tiger-Lie/BLOG/2104447/23189.html The following is an essay I wrote for my AP Language class a few weeks ago.~~~~Imagine this: It's a bright sunny day, and you decide to pay the local zoo a visit. You pay the fee, enter, and enjoy the wonderful and strange worlds of exotic animals from places like Asia, Africa, and South America. You see monkeys swinging from branch to branch, pandas placidly chewing on bamboo, and jaguars excitedly pacing back and forth in their enclosures. Then you come to the tigers. Like other park-goers, you are in awe of the ferocious beauty of these huge cats, and can't help but stare as a white tiger suddenly ambushes an orange one, and they begin to tumble and play. You take out your camera, snap a few pictures, and press the button to go back and see what you've taken. That's when you notice. The white tiger's eyes appear to be... crossed? That can't be right. You look again. No, that tiger's eyes are definitely crossed. You look up at the tiger and start to wonder why such a rare animal just so happens to be found at an everyday zoo, and at what price did his beauty come?     Sadly, this is not the thought process that 99% of the public goes through. At a regular zoo (if it can be called that), the public is shown what they want to see: a creature that has only a one in ten thousand chance of being born in the wild, and is magically produced just for that zoo. The white tiger is not all that it seems. If a white tiger were to be born in the wild, it would not be fit to survive. Tigers evolved to have orange coats in order to blend in with their surroundings and to be able to hide from their prey. A white tiger is completely unable to hide and fend for itself, and will likely die from starvation in a matter of weeks. Because nature works in such ways, only the strongest survive, and the wild white tiger would quickly be eliminated from the gene pool. The fact that humans were even able to catch a wild white tiger was a miracle all its own.     The sordid past of today's captive white tigers begins with the last white tiger in history to have existed before human greed decided to, essentially, screw the species over. Mohan was a white male tiger captured in India in 1951. The Maharaja owning him desired more white tigers, but failed to produce more by breeding him with a normal colored tigress. It was then the Maharaja’s brother came up with an ingenious plan: to breed Mohan with the tiger’s own daughter. This was a success, and all four of their cubs were born a glorious white. Having discovered the key, the Maharaja bred Mohan to his granddaughter-slash-daughter successively, until he died in 1969. In the meantime, Mohan’s descendants were consecutively inbred, and continued to produce white cubs. Remember children: Having incest with your brother or sister will make your kids both beautiful and smart... right?           Though the white tigers you see performing on stage or lounging in zoos appear to be healthy and full of vitality, people rarely learn that they are the lucky ones. The real white tiger is nothing like them. Whether it’s noticeable or not, all white tigers have crossed eyes because the gene carrying their white coloring causes the optic nerve to be wired on the wrong side of their brain. Other than being cross-eyed, they are often born with debilitating deformities, such as cleft palates (a condition in which the two parts of the skull that make up the roof of the mouth are not completely joined), scoliosis, immune deficiency, mental impairments, and according to Big Cat Rescue, “the number of tigers that have to be produced and disposed of in order to fill the public’s desire to see white tigers on display is staggering.”     Big Cat Rescue is an organization based in Tampa, Florida that is dedicated to rescuing exotic animals, most notably big cats, from abusive homes and unfit owners. Since the early nineties, the acclaimed non-profit organization has taken in and cared for hundreds of neglected big cats. They have also raised awareness of issues concerning such exotic and beautiful creatures, like the world’s greatest lie: the white tiger. Those who breed white tigers, do so out of either avarice or simply ignorance. Big Cat Rescue founder, Carole Baskin, writes, “The inbreeding results in many defects, early deaths, still births and, as could be expected, the cats are not very bright which is why they are preferred for entertainment purposes”. Prized for entertainment value, “they are far more dependant upon their masters” than the average tiger. In a perfect world, we could expect to hear some good explanations from a certain Vegas-centered mystical duo. I mean they ARE just another animal that God created especially for humans to enjoy. It leaves one to wonder; why on earth did I not hear of this sooner, and why doesn’t the rest of the public know about this?     Quite simple. Owners of white tigers don’t want you to know about their breeding so they can make profits off of them by marketing them as an “endangered species”. Ever heard of the “Royal White Siberian Tiger”? Not a real type of tiger. Other than their horrendous record of inbreeding, white tigers deteriorate the tiger as a whole because of the defects that come with their coloring and the little-known fact that they are actually Bengal-Siberian hybrids. Rather than “saving the white tiger”, we should completely outlaw their breeding. We shouldn’t even allow people to own them for spite. Mohandas Gandhi said it best when he noted “the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals”.~~~~If you want me to post my works cited, just say so.If there are any changes I could make, information I need to fix, or things I could add, please say so (I'm going to have to lop off a ton of details for a scholarship, later). I was originally going to add a bit about a special on Animal Planet about the "Awesome Pawsome", a litter of four cubs born at Tiger Island, a theme park in Australia,  to a white male and an orange female (Anyone else see that?). BUT, I don't have the information or resources to prove that they were related. Tiger Island claims to be breeding the tigers to "save them". They were born to separate mothers, so they probably had the same father. Here is a link to their information page:http://tigerace.com/dreamworld.htmlYeah, a great, safe, and **TOTALLY EFFICIENT** place for breeding and keeping tigers. I can't believe people can be that stupid. The following is an essay I wrote for my AP Language class a few weeks ago.~~~~Imagine this: It's a bright sunny day, and you decide to pay the local zoo a visit. You pay the fee, enter, and enjoy the wonderful and strange worlds of exotic animals from places like Asia, Africa, and South America. You see monkeys swinging from branch to branch, pandas placidly chewing on bamboo, and jaguars excitedly pacing back and forth in their enclosures. Then you come to the tigers. Like other park-goers, you are in awe of the ferocious beauty of these huge cats, and can't help but stare as a white tiger suddenly ambushes an orange one, and they begin to tumble and play. You take out your camera, snap a few pictures, and press the button to go back and see what you've taken. That's when you notice. The white tiger's eyes appear to be... crossed? That can't be right. You look again. No, that tiger's eyes are definitely crossed. You look up at the tiger and start to wonder why such a rare animal just so happens to be found at an everyday zoo, and at what price did his beauty come?     Sadly, this is not the thought process that 99% of the public goes through. At a regular zoo (if it can be called that), the public is shown what they want to see: a creature that has only a one in ten thousand chance of being born in the wild, and is magically produced just for that zoo. The white tiger is not all that it seems. If a white tiger were to be born in the wild, it would not be fit to survive. Tigers evolved to have orange coats in order to blend in with their surroundings and to be able to hide from their prey. A white tiger is completely unable to hide and fend for itself, and will likely die from starvation in a matter of weeks. Because nature works in such ways, only the strongest survive, and the wild white tiger would quickly be eliminated from the gene pool. The fact that humans were even able to catch a wild white tiger was a miracle all its own.     The sordid past of today's captive white tigers begins with the last white tiger in history to have existed before human greed decided to, essentially, screw the species over. Mohan was a white male tiger captured in India in 1951. The Maharaja owning him desired more white tigers, but failed to produce more by breeding him with a normal colored tigress. It was then the Maharaja’s brother came up with an ingenious plan: to breed Mohan with the tiger’s own daughter. This was a success, and all four of their cubs were born a glorious white. Having discovered the key, the Maharaja bred Mohan to his granddaughter-slash-daughter successively, until he died in 1969. In the meantime, Mohan’s descendants were consecutively inbred, and continued to produce white cubs. Remember children: Having incest with your brother or sister will make your kids both beautiful and smart... right?           Though the white tigers you see performing on stage or lounging in zoos appear to be healthy and full of vitality, people rarely learn that they are the lucky ones. The real white tiger is nothing like them. Whether it’s noticeable or not, all white tigers have crossed eyes because the gene carrying their white coloring causes the optic nerve to be wired on the wrong side of their brain. Other than being cross-eyed, they are often born with debilitating deformities, such as cleft palates (a condition in which the two parts of the skull that make up the roof of the mouth are not completely joined), scoliosis, immune deficiency, mental impairments, and according to Big Cat Rescue, “the number of tigers that have to be produced and disposed of in order to fill the public’s desire to see white tigers on display is staggering.”     Big Cat Rescue is an organization based in Tampa, Florida that is dedicated to rescuing exotic animals, most notably big cats, from abusive homes and unfit owners. Since the early nineties, the acclaimed non-profit organization has taken in and cared for hundreds of neglected big cats. They have also raised awareness of issues concerning such exotic and beautiful creatures, like the world’s greatest lie: the white tiger. Those who breed white tigers, do so out of either avarice or simply ignorance. Big Cat Rescue founder, Carole Baskin, writes, “The inbreeding results in many defects, early deaths, still births and, as could be expected, the cats are not very bright which is why they are preferred for entertainment purposes”. Prized for entertainment value, “they are far more dependant upon their masters” than the average tiger. In a perfect world, we could expect to hear some good explanations from a certain Vegas-centered mystical duo. I mean they ARE just another animal that God created especially for humans to enjoy. It leaves one to wonder; why on earth did I not hear of this sooner, and why doesn’t the rest of the public know about this?     Quite simple. Owners of white tigers don’t want you to know about their breeding so they can make profits off of them by marketing them as an “endangered species”. Ever heard of the “Royal White Siberian Tiger”? Not a real type of tiger. Other than their horrendous record of inbreeding, white tigers deteriorate the tiger as a whole because of the defects that come with their coloring and the little-known fact that they are actually Bengal-Siberian hybrids. Rather than “saving the white tiger”, we should completely outlaw their breeding. We shouldn’t even allow people to own them for spite. Mohandas Gandhi said it best when he noted “the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals”.~~~~If you want me to post my works cited, just say so.If there are any changes I could make, information I need to fix, or things I could add, please say so (I'm going to have to lop off a ton of details for a scholarship, later). I was originally going to add a bit about a special on Animal Planet about the "Awesome Pawsome", a litter of four cubs born at Tiger Island, a theme park in Australia,  to a white male and an orange female (Anyone else see that?). BUT, I don't have the information or resources to prove that they were related. Tiger Island claims to be breeding the tigers to "save them". They were born to separate mothers, so they probably had the same father. Here is a link to their information page:http://tigerace.com/dreamworld.htmlYeah, a great, safe, and **TOTALLY EFFICIENT** place for breeding and keeping tigers. I can't believe people can be that stupid. Fri, 12 Mar 2010 22:13:07 GMT http://bigcat.bigcatchat.com/_Little-White-Tiger-Lie/BLOG/2104447/23189.html Watari 2010-03-12T22:13:07Z Big Cats Chat Big Cats and Other Animals Too The following is an essay I wrote for my AP Language class a few weeks ago.~~~~Imagine this: It's a bright sunny day, and you decide to pay the local zoo a visit. You pay the fee, enter, and enjoy the wonderful and strange worlds of exotic animals from places like Asia, Africa, and South America. You see monkeys swinging from branch to branch, pandas placidly chewing on bamboo, and jaguars excitedly pacing back and forth in their enclosures. Then you come to the tigers. Like other park-goers, you are in awe of the ferocious beauty of these huge cats, and can't help but stare as a white tiger suddenly ambushes an orange one, and they begin to tumble and play. You take out your camera, snap a few pictures, and press the button to go back and see what you've taken. That's when you notice. The white tiger's eyes appear to be... crossed? That can't be right. You look again. No, that tiger's eyes are definitely crossed. You look up at the tiger and start to wonder why such a rare animal just so happens to be found at an everyday zoo, and at what price did his beauty come?     Sadly, this is not the thought process that 99% of the public goes through. At a regular zoo (if it can be called that), the public is shown what they want to see: a creature that has only a one in ten thousand chance of being born in the wild, and is magically produced just for that zoo. The white tiger is not all that it seems. If a white tiger were to be born in the wild, it would not be fit to survive. Tigers evolved to have orange coats in order to blend in with their surroundings and to be able to hide from their prey. A white tiger is completely unable to hide and fend for itself, and will likely die from starvation in a matter of weeks. Because nature works in such ways, only the strongest survive, and the wild white tiger would quickly be eliminated from the gene pool. The fact that humans were even able to catch a wild white tiger was a miracle all its own.     The sordid past of today's captive white tigers begins with the last white tiger in history to have existed before human greed decided to, essentially, screw the species over. Mohan was a white male tiger captured in India in 1951. The Maharaja owning him desired more white tigers, but failed to produce more by breeding him with a normal colored tigress. It was then the Maharaja’s brother came up with an ingenious plan: to breed Mohan with the tiger’s own daughter. This was a success, and all four of their cubs were born a glorious white. Having discovered the key, the Maharaja bred Mohan to his granddaughter-slash-daughter successively, until he died in 1969. In the meantime, Mohan’s descendants were consecutively inbred, and continued to produce white cubs. Remember children: Having incest with your brother or sister will make your kids both beautiful and smart... right?           Though the white tigers you see performing on stage or lounging in zoos appear to be healthy and full of vitality, people rarely learn that they are the lucky ones. The real white tiger is nothing like them. Whether it’s noticeable or not, all white tigers have crossed eyes because the gene carrying their white coloring causes the optic nerve to be wired on the wrong side of their brain. Other than being cross-eyed, they are often born with debilitating deformities, such as cleft palates (a condition in which the two parts of the skull that make up the roof of the mouth are not completely joined), scoliosis, immune deficiency, mental impairments, and according to Big Cat Rescue, “the number of tigers that have to be produced and disposed of in order to fill the public’s desire to see white tigers on display is staggering.”     Big Cat Rescue is an organization based in Tampa, Florida that is dedicated to rescuing exotic animals, most notably big cats, from abusive homes and unfit owners. Since the early nineties, the acclaimed non-profit organization has taken in and cared for hundreds of neglected big cats. They have also raised awareness of issues concerning such exotic and beautiful creatures, like the world’s greatest lie: the white tiger. Those who breed white tigers, do so out of either avarice or simply ignorance. Big Cat Rescue founder, Carole Baskin, writes, “The inbreeding results in many defects, early deaths, still births and, as could be expected, the cats are not very bright which is why they are preferred for entertainment purposes”. Prized for entertainment value, “they are far more dependant upon their masters” than the average tiger. In a perfect world, we could expect to hear some good explanations from a certain Vegas-centered mystical duo. I mean they ARE just another animal that God created especially for humans to enjoy. It leaves one to wonder; why on earth did I not hear of this sooner, and why doesn’t the rest of the public know about this?     Quite simple. Owners of white tigers don’t want you to know about their breeding so they can make profits off of them by marketing them as an “endangered species”. Ever heard of the “Royal White Siberian Tiger”? Not a real type of tiger. Other than their horrendous record of inbreeding, white tigers deteriorate the tiger as a whole because of the defects that come with their coloring and the little-known fact that they are actually Bengal-Siberian hybrids. Rather than “saving the white tiger”, we should completely outlaw their breeding. We shouldn’t even allow people to own them for spite. Mohandas Gandhi said it best when he noted “the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals”.~~~~If you want me to post my works cited, just say so.If there are any changes I could make, information I need to fix, or things I could add, please say so (I'm going to have to lop off a ton of details for a scholarship, later). I was originally going to add a bit about a special on Animal Planet about the "Awesome Pawsome", a litter of four cubs born at Tiger Island, a theme park in Australia,  to a white male and an orange female (Anyone else see that?). BUT, I don't have the information or resources to prove that they were related. Tiger Island claims to be breeding the tigers to "save them". They were born to separate mothers, so they probably had the same father. Here is a link to their information page:http://tigerace.com/dreamworld.htmlYeah, a great, safe, and **TOTALLY EFFICIENT** place for breeding and keeping tigers. I can't believe people can be that stupid. big cats, essay, fraud, lie, tiger, white nonadult false Little White Tiger Lie text blog big cats,essay,fraud,lie,tiger,white 250 13 5.0 http://bigcat.bigcatchat.com/service/displayKickPlace.kickAction?u=20519689&as=23189 http://media.kickstatic.com/kickapps/images/23189/photos/PHOTO_7838813_23189_20519689_ap_160X120.jpg false United States MI 6 Big Cats 0 2104447 20519689 Lynx 10375