On 25 December our white tigress, Geena, surprised us with three tiny little cubs for Christmas.  We were delighted with having “Christmas Cubs” but what made this birth even more exciting was the fact that one female cub in particular had basically no stripes.  She had blue eyes and a pink nose just like her siblings, but very few chocolate stripes which means that Cango has managed to breed a “snow-white” or stripeless tiger! 

As far as we know there are only about 20 recorded cases of ‘stripeless’ white tigers in the world.  The lack of stripes is caused by a genetic variation where a cub inherits two copies of  the recessive gene from his or her parents.  This means that both Geena and proud father, Sheeva, carry this “snow-white” gene.

The three cubs have been named Fareeda, Sitarah and Shahir and all three form part of our Natural Encounters program.
 

Posted: 8th June 2009