Jellybean was rescued as a cub from a zoo, and now lives in a beautiful, large, natural enclosure at the Carolina Tiger Rescue.  He eats a whole-carcass diet, gets daily enrichment to stimulate his mind and instincts, and is cared for by a staff of professionals.

Contrary to what many believe, white tigers are not a breed, nor are they albino: the white fur is a genetic mutation in a Bengal tiger. That’s all.  One white tiger was discovered in the wild in the 1950s, when it was captured and bred in an effort to produce white cubs which could be sold as a novelty.  The white tiger was bred with an orange female, and the cubs were orange.  He was bred with another orange tiger, and produced orange cubs.  So they bred him with one of his own daughters, and that time there were white cubs.  That litter became the breeding stock for 60 years of inbreeding, malformed cubs (very few even survive) and problematic health for those animals that do grow to adulthood.

However, white tigers can be sold for a lot of money, and the people that do this don’t care much about anything else.  The next time you see a white tiger being used as entertainment, think about where it came from. If you can stand it, think about the conditions it most likely lives in (small cramped cage, poor diet, lack of exercise, cruel methods of physical control).

At Carolina Tiger Rescue we are opposed to breeding for profit, private ownership of big cats, and the use of them in entertainment.