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Captive white tigers are of little known lineage. They are held captive around the world, usually for financial purposes. The Tiger Species Survival Plan devised by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums has condemned the breeding of white tigers. The genes responsible for white colour are represented by 0.001% of the tiger population. However, in 2008–2009, a closing stock of 264 Bengal tigers and 100 white Bengal tigers were accounted for in Indian zoos. The disproportionate growth in numbers of the latter points to the relentless inbreeding resorted to among homozygous recessive individuals for selectively multiplying the white animals. This progressively increasing process will eventually lead to inbreeding depression and loss of genetic variability.〔Xavier, N. (2010) (''A new conservation policy needed for reintroduction of Bengal tiger-white'' ). Current Science 99 (7): 894–895.〕 ==Mohan and the Rewa strain== Mohan was the founding father of the white tigers of Rewa.〔Van Nostrand, Mary L., "Mohan The Ghost Tiger Of Rewa", Zoonooz May 1984 pgs. 4–7〕 He was captured as a cub in 1951 by Maharaja of Rewa,〔http://www.banglalive.com/News/SpecialNewsDetail/6173〕 whose hunting party in Bandhavgarh found a tigress with four 9-month-old cubs, one of which was white. All of them were shot except for the white cub. After shooting a white tiger in 1948 the Maharaja of Rewa had resolved to capture one, as his father had done in 1915, at his next opportunity. Water was used to lure the thirsty cub into a cage, after he returned to a kill made by his mother. The white cub mauled a man during the capture process and was clubbed on the head and knocked unconscious. He was not necessarily expected to wake up, and this was his second brush with death. He recovered though, and was housed in the unused palace at Govindgarh in the erstwhile harem courtyard. The Maharaja named him Mohan, which roughly translates as "Enchanter", one of the many names of the Hindu deity Krishna. The white tiger the previous Maharaja had kept in captivity from 1915 to 1920 was also a male, unusually large like most white tigers (Mohan was no exception in this regard), and had a white male sibling still living in the wild. After the captive white tiger's death in 1920 he was mounted and presented to the Emperor King George V, as a token of loyalty.〔Sankhala, K.S., Tiger ! The Story Of The Indian Tiger, Simon & Schuster, New York 1977〕 This specimen is now in the British Museum. The first live white tiger reached England in 1820, and was exhibited at London's Exeter Change menagerie where it was examined by the famous French anatomist Georges Cuvier, who described it in his "Animal Kingdom" as having faint stripes only visible from certain angles of refraction. In 1960 there was a mounted white tiger, with faint reddish brown stripes, in the throne room of the Maharaja of Rewa. In 1953, Mohan was bred〔Alderton, David, Wild Cats Of The World, Blandford UK London 1993 pgs. 43–44〕 to a normal-coloured wild tigress called Begum ("royal consort"), which produced two male orange cubs on September 7, one of which went to Bombay Zoo. In 1955 they had a litter of two males and two females on April 10 (which included a male named Sampson and a female named Radha), all normal-coloured. On July 10, 1956 they again had a litter of two males and two females, which included a male named Sultan who went to Ahmedabad Zoo, and a female named Vindhya who went to the Delhi Zoo and was later bred to an unrelated male named Suraj.〔Thornton, I.W.B., K.K. Yeung & K.S. Sankhala. 1967. The genetics of white tigers in Rewa. J. Zool. 152: 127–35〕 Once again, the breeding experiments failed to yield a single white cub.〔 Mohan was then bred to his daughter Radha (who carried the white gene inherited from her father) with success. The initial litter of four cubs—a male named Raja, and three females named Rani, Mohini, and Sukeshi—were the first white tigers born in captivity, on October 30, 1958.〔〔Stracey, P.D., Tigers, London: Baker, New York: Golden P., 1968〕 Raja and Rani went to the New Delhi Zoo, and Mohini was bought by the German-American billionaire John Kluge〔Reed, Theodore H. "Enchantess: Queen Of An Indian Palace Rare White Tigress Comes To Washington." ''National Geographic'' May 1961〕 for $10,000, for the National Zoo in Washington D.C., as a gift to the children of America, in 1960. The Government of India made a deal with the Maharaja, under the terms of which Raja and Rani would go to the New Delhi Zoo〔Husain, Dawar, Breeding And Hand-Rearing Of White Tiger Cubs Panthera tigris At New Delhi Zoo, International Zoo Yearbook Vol. VI 1966〕〔Sankhala, Kailash, Breeding Behavior Of The Tiger Panthera tigris In Rajasthan, International Zoo Yearbook Vol. VII 1967 pg. 133〕 for free. In exchange the Maharaja's white tiger breeding would be subsidized and he would receive a share of their cubs. He wanted Rs 100,000 for them. Technically Sukeshi was also the property of the New Delhi Zoo, and in a sense India had nationalized the captive white tigers of Rewa. The Parliament of India would hear reports on the progress of the white tigers, and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and U Nu of Burma participated in public christening ceremonies for white cubs at New Delhi Zoo.〔Rai, Usha. 1987, Will they outlast this century? Times of India, New Delhi March 15〕 Sukeshi remained at Govindgarh Palace, in the harem courtyard where she was born, as a mate for Mohan. That same year, India imposed a ban on the export of white tigers,〔Roth, T.W. "Rare White Tiger Of Rewa" Journal Of cat Genetics Vol. 1 April May June 1964 No. 3;〕〔Gee, E.P.,"The White Tigers" Animals 3:282–286〕〔"White tiger exports banned",N.Y. Times D.4, 1960 12:2〕〔Beatty, Clyde, "Facing The Big Cats" (1965)〕〔Casey, Phil, Disenchanted India Stops Export Of White Tigers After City Gets One, The Washington Post Dec. 4, 1960 pg. A1〕〔Young, Robert, "Ike, Priceless White Tigress Meet On Lawn, President Views Cat at White House", The Chicago Tribune Dec. 6, 1960, pg. A11〕 in an effort to preserve a monopoly (as a tourist attraction), possibly because Anglo-Indian naturalist Edward Pritchard Gee recommended that Govindgarh Palace, and its white tiger inhabitants, be made a "national trust", which did not happen. Mohini was only allowed to leave India because US President Dwight D. Eisenhower intervened personally with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, to ask for the release of the United States government's white tiger. A white sister of Mohini's had been brought to New Delhi the year before to show the President, who was no stranger to white tigers. After the export ban was imposed the Maharaja threatened to release all of his white tigers into the Rewa forest, and so he was given dispensation to sell two more pairs abroad, to offset his costs.〔Gee, E.P., "The Wildlife Of India" London: Collins 1964〕 Six zoos acquired white tigers from the Maharaja of Rewa including the Bristol Zoo in England (a brother and sister pair named Champak and Chameli on June 22, 1963 for the equivalent of $10,000 each.)〔〔"White tigers at Bristol Zoo", The Times August 17, 1963, pg. 8b.〕 and the Crandon Park Zoo (which closed around 1983, and moved out of Crandon Park to the site of the Miami MetroZoo) in Miami acquired a white tigress in 1968.〔Cousins, D., 1977 The white tiger and its status in captivity. International Zoo News 24(7) 147:16–19〕 Bristol Zoo's pair, born in 1962, came from another litter of four, all white, but two (one female and one male) did not survive. Years later the Bristol Zoo needed a new breeding male and traded a white female to New Delhi Zoo for a white tiger named Roop, who had been named by U Nu, the Prime Minister of Burma.〔 He was the son of Raja by his own mother and half sister- Radha, born in New Delhi. Radha, and many other tigers from Govindgarh including Sukeshi, were later transferred to New Delhi. Begum went to live at Ahmedabad Zoo and was bred to her son Sultan. They produced twelve cubs in four litters between 1958 and 1961.〔 Bristol Zoo later transferred two male white tigers to Dudley Zoo. The government of West Bengal bought two white males, named Niladari and Himadri, from the Maharaja for the Alipore Zoological Gardens (Calcutta Zoo), and an orange female named Malini, from the same litter of three born in 1960, accompanied them there. The Alipore Zoo in Kolkata, recovered the purchase price of its white tigers within six months by charging extra to see them. By 1966 the Bombay Zoo had a white tigress named Lakshmi, born in 1964, from the Maharaja. The Calcutta Zoo sold a white tigress named Sefali to Gauhati Zoo and sent a second white tiger there on loan. Circus owner Clyde Beatty also bought a white tiger from the Maharaja in 1960, for $10,000 in a deal facilitated by the Smithsonian National Zoo director T.H. Reed, who had traveled to India to escort Mohini to Washington, which had to be canceled because of the export ban, which made Mohini even more valuable. She was estimated to be worth $28,000. President Tito of Yugoslavia visited New Delhi Zoo and asked for white tigers for Belgrade Zoo, but was refused.〔Desai, J.H., & Malhotra, A.K., "The White Tiger" New Delhi Publications, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India, 1992〕 A white tiger named Dalip from New Delhi Zoo represented India in two international expositions in Budapest and Osaka. A white tigress named Nandni, who was born in New Delhi Zoo in 1971, went to Hyderabad Zoo.〔 By 1976 the Lucknow Zoo also had a white tiger which was a gift from New Delhi Zoo. Zoos with white tigers constituted a most exclusive club and the white tigers themselves represented a single extended family. In 1965 or 1966 Terence Walton, a member of the Maharaja of Rewa's staff, was attending a performance of the Ringling Bros. Circus in Madison Square Garden and had a note passed to tiger trainer Charles Baumann, on the Maharaja's stationary, requesting an opportunity to discuss white tigers. He may have hoped to make a sale. Baumann was invited to Rewa, but was not able to go. Mohan was featured in the National Geographic documentary "Great Zoos Of The World" in 1970. He died later that year, aged almost 20, and was laid to rest with Hindu rites as the palace staff observed official mourning. He was the last recorded white tiger born in the wild. The last white tiger seen in the wild was shot in 1958 in the Hazaribagh forests of Bihar.〔 There have been rumors of white tigers in Hazaribagh, the Tora forsts of Rewa, and Kanha National Park since 1958, but these were not considered credible by K.S. Sankhala. A photograph of Mohan's stuffed head, in a display case in the private museum of the Maharaja of Rewa in Govindgarh Lake Palace, appears in the National Geographic book "The Year Of The Tiger."〔Nichols, Michael & Ward, Geoffrey C., The Year Of The Tiger, National Geographic Society 1998 pg. 82〕 Another picture of Mohan's head appears on the official website of the Maharaja of Rewa (MP).〔(Official website of the Maharaja of Rewa (M.P.) )〕 The Maharaja of Rewa turned Mohan's native forest into the Bandhavgarh National Park, because he could not control the poaching. The Maharaja was negotiating the sale of a white male, named Virat, as late as 1976, when he died of enteritis. Virat was a son of Mohan and Sukeshi. At Bandhavgarh visitors can stay at the White Tiger Lodge, which is the local version of Tiger Tops in Royal Chitwan in Nepal. Pushpraj Singh, the reigning Maharaja of Rewa, has asked students to sign a petition to ask the President of India to return at least two white tigers to Govindgarh Lake Palace, as a tourist attraction.〔"MP students want white tiger back in its homeland", Hindustan Times, December 1, 2007 http://hindustantimes.com/storypage/storypage.aspx?id=b274835b-1b55-403a-83f2-2eea243ae05d&&Headline=Indian+〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Captive white tigers」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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