Drawings of Tigers

Tigers are beautiful, but sadly they are also an animal who is headed for extinction unless we do something drastic.  I am not really sure how to save the tigers other than to control our own population growth to prevent people from needing more land and taking it from natural areas where tigers live.  Housing more and more tigers is not really the answer either, while it may preserve a species, it really does so in an unnatural manner.  Keeping tigers as "pets" is selfish and does not really benefit tigers as a species.

At any rate, tigers are beautiful and are an animal that is often captured in art.  I have done several drawings of tigers and want to show some of them to you.

Snarling tiger.  © Brenda Nelson

This is my first drawing of a tiger.  If you look a the image you probably do not immediately notice that I added a man's face on the tiger's forehead, if you look at the picture upside down you can see it better.  I thought it was clever at the time but now I sort of wish I had not done that.

Snoozing tiger.  © Brenda Nelson

This is my second drawing of a tiger.  I like how this turned out.  While I did it from a picture of a sleeping tiger it could also be a dead tiger and could be a statement against hunting or extinction in general. 

I do hope we can preserve natural areas for tigers and not wipe them out.  We need to have proper breeding programs for the captive tigers and not allow inbreeding or hybrid breeding between species unless it is to improve the bloodlines.  Breeding white tigers should be illegal as they are inbred and suffer from genetic eye conditions.

Hopefully we can prevent tigers from going extinct in the wild or all we will have left one day is images of tigers in photos and art, which is very sad.

White Tigers, Cruel Man Made Mutants

Did you know that there are no wild white tigers?  Although zoos often refer to white tigers as Royal White Bengal Tigers, this is not actually a species of tiger.  The white tigers you see on display in zoos today are not even purebreds, they are crosses between Siberian Tigers and Bengal Tigers.  They are also greatly inbred, the gene for white is recessive so white tigers are often created by breeding father to daughter, mother to son, and brother to sister. 

As with most inbred animals there are always more genetic health problems.  The gene that makes them white is linked to eye problems.  White tigers always have poor vision, making them more dependent on their handler.  In some cases this is easy to see as they may be cross eyed, in other cases the problem is in regards to how their eyes are wired to their brain.   Some tiger trainers prefer white tigers because their poor vision makes them easier to train, they are more dependent on their handler than a tiger with normal health vision.

photo source

White tigers are often born with spinal deformities, cleft pallets (a mouth deformity), and organ problems.  It is not uncommon for them to die shortly after birth.

Although not all zoos in the United States are members of the American Zoological Association (AZA), this group passed a ban in 2011 prohibiting members from breeding white tigers.

Although I realize many of you might want to see these beautiful animals it is best to not support the zoos that have white tigers.  There is no ethical reason for breeding them.  In fact many of the people who try to breed white tigers "dispose" of the tiger cubs born with normal orange colored fur.  The only reason they breed white tigers is for greed, vanity, and profit.  It must be stopped.

If you see white tigers in your local zoo be sure to express your displeasure with the intentional breeding programs that some zoos have adopted to make more of these sickly animals.

Further Reading on White Tigers

Breeding White Tigers does not Help Tigers

Big Cat Rescue - White Tigers

Costs of Owning a Pet Tiger

The Tiger Mom and the Piglets

Sometime in 2006 an e-mail circulated about a female tiger nursing piglets to overcome her depression at the loss of her tiger cubs. 

I remember seeing this in 2007 and later did a search on it only to discover the whole thing was a fake.  The truth was a little depressing.

The tiger mom and the piglets were part of an entertainment feature at the Sriracha Zoo in Thailand.  This zoo is noted for having a tiger breeding program in which cubs are raised to be used in circuses or for sale to other zoos.  As such the cubs are probably taken from their mothers at a very young age and raised by people - or placed with a sow for equal entertainment value, at least for the hours people visit the zoo. 

The zoo went so far as to dress the piglets like tigers, but apparently this was also just for show, as the tiger skins were removed after the zoo closed.

one of the pictures from the circulated e-mail

To say if this is cruel or not is a person's own opinion.  It certainlly is not natural, although there have been some true stories where animals of one species raise young of an other (rarely a dog may raise a kitten, or young squirrels).  Nutritionally one would have to assume both the piglets and the tiger cubs were also fed special formula for their species.  In some cases visitors were allowed to bottle feed the young animals.  The Srirahca Tiger zoo would not be a place I would have on the top of my list to visit. 

It is interesting to note that there are currently more tigers in captivity than in the wild, yet many of the captive tigers are inbred to the point they have health issues, and short lifespans.

Further Reading On Pet Tigers and Zoos

Facts on Pet Tigers

So... You want a Pet Tiger... Other ways of having a Pet

Issues of Zoos

Tigers as Pets

Drawing by Brenda Nelson.©

More Tigers are kept as pets than there are in the wild. Sadly many of these pets do not have ideal, or even marginally good, lives and living conditions. Not only are Tigers an “extreme” exotic pet, they are one that requires a high standard of care, often not met due to the cost and work involved. Tigers are not a house pet, although some people do keep them as such.

Most areas that allow tigers as pets require the owner to have a permit. Sadly having a permit does not account for much in some areas. The high cost of meat means many “Pet” Tigers are malnourished. Tigers are frequently found in bad condition, or not found at all... (the market for Tiger bones is huge in China, but USA has the second largest demand for this commodity).

In some cases people try to breed Tigers specifically for color (to produce “White” Tigers) and this results in inbred animals that have loads of health problems, leaving them in pain, for shortened lifespans.  As well many tiger cubs who are born in effort to produce the rarer white tigers, are killed if they do not have the correct color.

Painting by Brenda Nelson ©  I am Not Tony - on Raven House Publishing

Many people grow up dreaming of one day owning an exotic pet, such as a Tiger, but in truth big cats, such as Tigers, are not “Pets” as we know them. They are wild animals, not domesticated to the level of being considered a “pet”. Many people who own Tigers do so for selfish reasons (to be “cool” or to impress others), as opposed to owning them for the “right” reasons (because they can afford to care for it, provide it with a good life, and because it needs a safe place to live).

The facts are alarming, according to Big Cat Rescue, (the world's largest rescue group for large cats) over 1000 big cats were listed as “unwanted” by their owners over a 10 year period (1999 -2009). The rescue saved 79 of these, while only 19 found other homes.

The same site also mentions that 98% of exotic pets die within 2 years of being brought home as pets. Their site offers more alarming stats on Tigers and other Big Cats.  Here is their page on Wild Tiger information.



Other Links

Facts Regarding Owning Pet Tigers
Other Ways of Having a Pet Tiger