A white tiger is scheduled to arrive at the city zoo in a fortnight, in what has been touted as its first ever acquisition of the fairly rare feline species. However, the six-year-old female that the New Delhi Zoological Park has pledged to hand over will not technically be the first of the species to walk in the zoo.
An old ‘stock register’ that has records of all the creatures born in the zoo since 1960 or brought here by sponsors and exchange schemes does mention the birth of white tiger cubs here — five times.
The crumbling register includes a page on the tigers the zoo has been home to, starting with one brought from the Nagpur zoo in 1962.
Scribbled in fading ink alongside the serial number of the tiger, are its dates of birth and death, besides reasons for death. Lower down the list are those marked with additional description in brackets — ‘albino’ — even though that is now understood to be an incorrect usage.
The first two were on September 29, 1987, meaning the Thiruvananthapuram zoo has seen the birth of white tiger cubs. Sadly though, this litter that included one orange-coloured cub as well were born weak and died the same day.
There was one born in January 1988 as well but this one died the following month. The next white tiger cubs were born in May 1993, and again, they barely lasted a month.
These deaths could be attributed to the fact that most white tigers are born physically weak and are susceptible to early mortality because their numbers were increased through inbreeding in captivity.
This is not to say that there aren’t those that survive and go on to live long.
The city zoo has no intention of such inbreeding programmes to produce more white tigers. The new entrant will only be mated with one of the orange-coated tigers of the zoo. An air-conditioned truck carrying Salman the jaguar left the zoo on Wednesday evening, accompanied by the zoo superintendent and veterinarian.
