It was announced today at the St. Petersburg “tiger summit” that only 3,200 tigers exist in the wild. Those that still exist are suffering from poaching and habitat destruction.
If those forces continue at the same pace, tigers will be extinct in the wild by 2022.
The summit was put together by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who is something of a tiger enthusiast, and the World Bank.
The most interesting thing to come out of the summit thus far is that Russia has announced plans to work with China to set up a large transnational tiger preserve for their shared population of Amur tigers.
Things look bleak for the tiger. I don’t know if the efforts of this summit will be successful.
Most people don’t in the West don’t realize tigers are in this much trouble.
And considering how bad things are economically, I don’t think we’re going to invest that much in saving this animals.
After all, most people think tigers are fine. You can see them at just about any roadside zoo.
If only they knew that those mongrel tigers were of no use to the conservation to this species…
But that’s hard to explain.
That’s depressing.
“Mongrel tigers”? if that is a way to continue the species, why not? Is that so different from what has been so much vaunted on this blog, the cross-breeding of dogs in the interests of “genetic diversity”…?
Not that maintaining healthy colonies of wild tigers is not a worthy goal– it certainly is. But perhaps those “mongrels” could at some time be of use in widening the native gene pool, by AI of wild females, for instance.
Right now, the species survival plan for tigers has them preserved according to subspecies.
Most Bengal tigers in captivity are mixtures of Bengal and Amur tigers. Last time I checked, there are no pure Bengals in the country or are part of the Bengal studbook.
Wolves are also conserved by the subspecies. When wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone, there was a lawsuit in which it was argued that the wolves were not the proper subspecies.
The same argument is made today about Mexican wolves, which are running free (kind of) in northern Arizona. That region may not be the historic range for that subspecies.
It’s not out of the Question for Tigers to intermingle on their own if the populations did exist to the point where territories overlapped on their own. After all there is a rational explanation for all the subspecies in the first place. They didn’t just appear on their own. But, the artificial way it’s been done by human intervention over a relatively short perion in history, may not be the right answer until the Big cats in question are verified as completely unrelated. I believe if everything I’ve read is correct… thats the crux of the problem. Even if the Mongrels were the way to save the “Modern Tiger”. Considering the web of variables that have to be considered at a genetic level….. It’s easy theory to bring up…. harder to actually implement in a positive way for future generations of Big cats.
I don’t see why “mongrel tigers” can’t be used. if most captive “Bengals” are crossbreds and the actual Bengal is going extinct, then preserving as much of “Bengal” as possible would seem to be the answer. After all, if a Dalmation/pointer is essentially 100% Dalmation after umpteen generations, I fail to see why a Bengal/Amur wouldn’t be essentially Bengal after a few generations. This idea of “don’t ever cross” is going to exterminate a bunch of species, all in the name of “preservation”. It’s better to keep some or even many of the genes in crossbred tigers than to see it all go becasue no one wanted a “mongrel” tiger.
Peggy Richter.
It doesn’t make sense to me either, but tiger conservationists are pretty strict about subspecies.
Maybe it’s because one subspecies can handle absolutely frigid conditions, some are adapted to tropical rainforests, some to temperate forests, and one to the various habitats of the Indian subcontinent.
retrieverman said: Maybe it’s because one subspecies can handle absolutely frigid conditions, some are adapted to tropical rainforests, some to temperate forests, and one to the various habitats of the Indian subcontinent.
=sure. But the same can be said about dog breeds, can’t it? Some are retrievers, some are herders, some are even specialized for cattle vice sheep herding. Some are both protection and herding, some designed for one environment (Artic)vice another (arid desert), etc???? I only ask that logic apply. If scientists are insisting that 1000 or so (more or less related) dogs aren’t enough for a viable sound gene pool, neither are 1000 or so (more or less) related tigers. If careful crossbreeding is “better” for canid health, …..
Nature is seldom so absolute as to deny ANY crossing of subspecies. Hawaii and Galapagos and similar locals are about the only places where you get a “one time only” situation. Lions once ranged right across Europe from India to Africa. There’s no justification for asserting that no African genes need apply (or even vice versa). Ditto for tigers.
Peggy Richter.
With lions at least, cross-breeding between different subspecies is a bad idea:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/waiting-to-die-last-days-of-the-crossbred-lions-too-weak-to-eat-416456.html
I saw that and thought it was really odd. But subspecies are definitely further apart than breeds.
Yes it does seem really odd. I looked for a different article on it, and found this one:
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/chhatbir-zoo-waits-for-the-last-roar/22159-3.html
It seems that the problem was NOT the crossing of 2 sub-species, but of inbreeding those hybrids.
Yes, it is inbreeding if you mate brother and sister goldendoodles. Yes, recessives from both the Golden Retriever and the Poodle can appear in the puppies if you inbreed hybrids, especially if you start outcrossing BECAUSE of health problems in one of the original breeds.
The problem in NOT with the hybrids, it is with inbreeding of them.
Also, just as there are purebred dog breeders who look for ‘facts’ to justify what they do, there are also political positions within wild animal breeding groups, where people are temped to fudge information (spin it) so that it seems to support their own position, rather than to elucidate the truth, and let people think it through for themselves.
Note the term “massive inbreeding” of the hybrids.
Also note where it says “no conservation VALUE”. I read that as: that someone else said that their lions weren’t valuble to them.
Also note that the zoo (In Inda) is now following someone else’s guidelines. When these lions are dead, they will breed “purebreds”.
Just as in dog breeding, following some authority’s standards is NOT always the healthiest was to go.
AKA: propaganda. Do not believe everything you read.
I don’t think that was propaganda. I just think it was a misunderstanding.
Yeah. I heard that all the Asiatic lions were in captivity in this country were crosses with African lions, and that there is a subspecies of lion that was once native to North Africa that was more closely related to the Asiatic lion.
Thank you for finding that and clarifying things.
People make mistakes, and that’s okay.
But from companies, I growl a little at big mistakes sometimes. I want better from groups than what I expect from regular people.
The tiger article is probably a mistake. But what about what some purebred dog breeders write about their inbreeding of their dogs? Mistakes or an attempt to cover up what they are doing by deliberately writing misleading mis-information?
That actually suggests that Asiatic and African lions might be separate species.
Very strange.
Hmmmmmmm, I’m trying to find a nice way to talk about terrible things, but I guess there is no way to whitewash a monster topic.
Laws are words. Laws deal with details. Morals can be details or a larger picture. Laws have a tough time trying to codify the big picture.
Take for example, laws against murder. People, much older than I am, have told me about how things were when they were young.
For example: abortion was illegal, and so was murdering a baby, but the laws did not (in some places) specifically require you to take care of a baby which you didn’t want. So some people just put the baby in the basement until it starved.
I have watched shows on TV which say that in China, some orphanages did this to unwanted baby girls. To kill them would be murder, but sometimes, the law has loopholes, like in not requiring care-givers to give care good enough that the one cared for, lives.
As much as we might like to say “Oh, but that is another country, with a different culture……..” Fact is, America is not a culture, it is a cluster of different cultures. Both one and many at the same time.
I have on good word that back before abortion was re-legalised, it was common to leave babies in the snow to die. This was because abortion was illegal, and directly murdering was illegal, but care was NOT legally required.
So a grandparent could remove an unwanted guest (his young daughter’s illegitamate baby) from the house, anytime he wanted, even if there was 2 feet of snow. Today, the law would call that murder, then, it was called “property rights”. And in some places you could starve, leave in the snow, “live and let die” by neglect, dogs, horses, and other animals as they were only your property, and had no rights of their own.
Not that the US and China are the only two places that have done this. I have heard about places where the cow is scared, but where there are some people who have a cow with a useless newborn bull calf – their religion forbids them to kill the calf, so they prevent it from nursing from it’s mother until the calf starves. They don’t directly kill the calf, but even though they are vegetarians, they wont share the cow’s milk with her calf, and so indirectly kill the calf to get all of the cow’s milk.
The fate of unwanted dependants, both animals and babies, has been traditionally death.
If you are reading Jemima Harrison’s blog:
http://pedigreedogsexposed.blogspot.com
one of the recent posts has comments about c-sections in bulldogs and how their kennel club is trying to regulate breeding dogs with small hips and big heads by saying that you can’t keep putting a mother dogs who needs c-section through repeated preganancies.
But there is a problem: the way they are trying to word their rules, encourages breeders to leave laboring female dogs, who really need a c-section, to try to deliver their puppies without a vet.
How they need to write the rule, is that if a litter is born by c-section, then THAT LITTER, can’t be registered unless the mother dog has been spayed, unless it is the first time that the mother dog has had a c-section.
(got called away, for a moment, in mid paragraph)
– and that if a mother dog has a litter by c-section, and needs another c-section, and the breeder fails to have her spayed, that dog breeder is ousted from the club and may never again show, handle, a register with the club again – the club will never again recognise their signature.
– and that if a veterinarian lies with his signature, then his signature will not be recognised by the club for anything again.
And remember that people are NOT dogs. A woman in labor can yell “Take me to the hospital”. Dogs are often left alone while their owners work or sleep (image telling a woman in labor “I will get up and take you to a hospital in the morning, if you haven’t had the baby by then”).
Also veterinarian bills can be expensive, and breeders are not always fond of vet bills. Some breeders schedule an appointment for a c-section for every bulldog mother expecting a litter, but other breeders wait to see if she can do it herself. But that can be a rough delivery for a narrow hipped dog with big headed puppies.
And one of the worst parts about it is that so many of the dogs in the breed have breathing problems. Some gasp for air just going for a walk! Laboring to deliver a whole litter of puppies requires that the mother dog can breathe air in and out.
I feel so sorrow for the flat-faced dogs! Maybe only those flat-faced females who have a vet check saying that their breathing during an hours jog (like labor) is fine, can be bred, and that only those females certified in the 3 monthos PRIOR TO breeding can have their puppies registered.
Or maybe they should out-cross some of the flat-faced breeds who have these problems?
)(*&$$%^&*)()*&^%$@#%$^%(^)(&^&$%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I wrote a nice reply to retrieverman’s 11:55 am (Nov 23, 2010) comment (okay it was long enough to be an article, instead of a reply) – it was about conservation laws for animals and how they were affected by hybrid wild animals.
It is gone? A page that I had never seen before popped up and said that something had to be corrected, I returned to correct it, and it was gone. Lost in the electronic dead letter office, I guess.
ARG ARG ARG!!! Does any one know how to retrieve it from hard drive? Please tell me.
I didn’t type it from my email, I took the shortcut and typed it directly onto the “Post Comment” box.
messy beast has a discussion on the hybrid African/Asiatic lions:
http://www.messybeast.com/genetics/hyb-lion-subspecies.htm
Also at (i added a space after the com so it wouldn’t show as two urls and disappear into spam space). http://www.telegraphindia.com /1041226/asp/opinion/story_4175563.asp
The applicable text is: The high levels of inbreeding within groups of Asiatic lions and within the hybrid lions has led to many genetic defects in some animals. While there has been no formal study on such problems, wildlife scientists cite examples of poor gait, reproductive defects, sperm abnormality, as well as weakened immune systems which means wounds that linger for long.
So, it wasn’t crossing African/Asiatic lions that was the problem. It was inbreeding both before and after.
As for inbreeding/crossbreeding dogs, I reiterate my personal view that an “Appendix” registry would solve much of the problem — allowing a crossbreeding to occur, then 3 generations before allowing the decendents to be “regularly registered”. It would be difficult enough to eliminate crossbreeding “just because” but easy enough for it to be accomplished by dedicated breeders. The question would be if the canid registries would follow the cat fancier’s assn in listing “breeds that can be mixed” or not.
I can see mixing Briards & Beaucaerons (they were originally one breed anyway), crossing BCs with Aussies, Beardies, Kelpies, English Shepherds (although the last would not benefit the ES). Bouviers/Giant Schnauzers/some of the Altdeuchers? There’s a number of “close cousins” that could be employed — but both sides of such crosses have their own genetic loads — would it actually improve the dogs or only the F1 generations, who would thereafter have problems from both sides of such crosses?
Peggy Richter
Thank you so much for clarifying all of this.
Whenever you get genetic issues when you cross what appear to be the same species, you might have evidence that you have two species.
That was the case with the northern and southern white rhinos. One of the hybrids born in captivity developed cancer at a very early age.
Not all wolf and coyote and dog and coyote hybrids are fertile. That’s one way we know we’ve crossed the species barrier and are fairly certain that Canis lupus and Canis latrans are separate species..
I knew a person, who said she knew another person who owned a dog/ coyote hybrid (dogyote?, coydog?). then she told me that this dog could jump a 6 foot block wall fence “like a cat” with no running start, and without touching the top of the fence as it jumped it.
I seldom call friends liars even when I don’t believe them, but I did express disbelief – that was too much, I’d seen big dogs struggle to pull themselves over a fence.
She invited me to come see for myself. The dog did look much like a coyote mix – but definately not a pure coyote. But, I thought it could also be a German Shepherd/ Whippet/ Mutt mix.
With no trouble at all the dog leapt over the 6 foot tall block wall fence without touching the top of the fence and without any running start. Then it jumped back. It seemed to enjoy this. The dog jumped without treats or anything.
The owners, whose own yard had no fence, kept the dog on a long chain when they let it out of the house.
It was NOT a big dog. It was a female and she produced a huge litter of puppies. The puppies were regular floppy earred puppies, not looking anything like a coyote.
If she had been a male dog, she could have been the local “How did our Muffy get pregnant, she never leaves the yard?” mystery sire. And produced more: 100% pure backyard fence jumper sired litters.
Was this dog part coyote? I don’t know, she did look coyote like. Since then, other people have said that their mutt dog leaps over fences. Might other non-coyote dogs be able to leap fence if they were taught to do so without a running start?
Have dogs deteriorated over the years to where we think of dogs as animals that must struggle to get up enough speed to leap over a bar only as tall as the dog’s back – and we marvel at that?
Wouldn’t it be weird to find out that for years and years, purebred dog breeds have looked at dogs with bad gaits, and strove to breed dogs with better gaits, if they then found out that it was their own intense inbreeding of dogs which caused the defects in the dog’s gaits to begin with?
How ironic would that be?
See the wolves of Isle Royale.