Captive tigers of good lineage

2008/04/21 Roa Zubia, Guillermo - Elhuyar Zientzia

• Biologia
• Zoologia

It is estimated that there is much less tigers in nature than in zoos, circuses, and other types of captivity. It is estimated that there are about 3,000 wild tigers and 20,000 captives. These numbers can force to use captive tigers to deal with the serious condition of the species. But biologists are concerned because they do not know if the genetic heritage of captive tigers is adequate for it. If there is strong confusion in Genoma, tigers will have little capacity to adapt to the natural environment. But a genetic research has brought some hope, since the lineage of captive tigers is purer than they imagined. Consequently, the genetic material of different origins should be completely mixed. And it is mixed, but less than expected. Some biologists from Maryland, in the United States, have collected and analyzed captive tigers from all over the world in order to determine the subspecies of these tigers. The result of the study is that half of the tigers analyzed are of a single subspecies. It is an encouraging fact, but, according to the researchers, wrong. Few samples are taken and say that less than 23% of the tigers are of the same subspecies, although it is a very high figure if it is taken into account that there are five subspecies and that biologists expected to find hybrids of these subspecies in the captive tigers.