THE TIGER CHANGING ITS STRIPES?
India Today|May 16, 2022
It's seen such an unalterable fact of nature that it has yielded a proverb: a tiger cannot change its stripes. But that’s exactly what India’s iconic national animal is doing.
Rohit Parihar
THE TIGER CHANGING ITS STRIPES?

Something curious is afoot in the slender pool of tigers left in our pockets of wilderness—and it’s hap­pening precisely because the pool is so slender. Inbreeding is inevitable, and its consequences are showing up in a startling visual metaphor. Gene mutations have led to tigers being born with wider black stripes in Odisha’s Simlipal Reserve. These apparent freaks of nature—being called “black tigers”—have a precursor. White tigers, a dismal product of inbreeding, have been known in American zoos since the 1950s. Animal geneticists are worried. Such tigers typically have severe defor­mities such as cross-eyes and cleft lips, besides high mortality rates. In Sariska, Rajasthan, a blind cub born two years ago—and dead within months—was ascribed to the genetic curse. The spectre of decay in isolated tiger popula­tions due to mating between closely related individuals—called ‘inbreeding depression’—is now driving what could be India’s first attempt to intervene in the genetic diversity of the big cat.

This story is from the May 16, 2022 edition of India Today.

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This story is from the May 16, 2022 edition of India Today.

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