New baby

Here I am feeding our newest baby. She's ~4 weeks old here. (This was three weeks ago.)



Poor baby has a cleft palate which will require surgery. The vet has determined it is best to wait until she is 4 months old. The guy that had her (and was breeding tigers - a whole other story) was basically going to let her starve to death. She is gaining weight and doing well. The vet tech students which do a rotation and internship here have really loved taking turns feeding her. In four more weeks she'll be on limited contact and they will no longer be allowed to feed her. When she gets larger there will be no direct contact: our standard safety rule for large cats.

WOW...what a gorgeous girl.

Katie

She is gorgeous . With a cutie like that it is very easy to fall in love with .

What a gorgeous girl . . . she's soo cute!! I can't believe some person would just plan to let such an amazing animal starve like that. Thank goodness for people like you.

George, she is just beautiful!!! Wow, how lucky are you (and the vet students!) to be able to have an experience like this with her! And we all know just how lucky she is that there are people like you to work with her and make sure she has a wonderful life.

She's beautiful! Adds a whole new dimension to 'fostering kittens' LOL.

omg she is really very beautiful

She's gorgeous!! Not to mention cute.

What a pretty girl! I second Viva in saying Thank goodness for people like you George. Feel free to share more pictures of her with us! Does she have a name?

WOW!
It would be nice to hear more about what's in store for her! Glad to hear she is doing well.

How sweet! That's so interesting to me, I wasn't aware kitties could have a cleft palete. You're so fortunate to have this opportunity!

She is so beautiful. Lucky you took her over.

Whate a gorgeous picture , shes a beauty

No name at this point. The naming is a privilege generally given to the animal's sponsor, and she doesn't have one as of yet. She will be named by the time she's six months old of even if one isn't found.

She has been gaining weight well - even doubled her weight that first week (after this picture was taken.) She's quite clumsy, but that's normal for her age. She's now a bit larger, though much stockier, than a large house cat. Her front paws are already almost three inches across

She'll be permanently housed at our facility. While tigers are naturally solitary animals they generally do better in captivity when housed with a companion, so one will be found for her when the time is appropriate. We vascetomize the males to prevent pregnancies. (It's the safest procedure in big cats to ensure no offspring. Spay/neuter surgeries are much more dangerous for these animals than for smaller cats or dogs and so is generally not considered a medically sound approach.)

I was thinking about you and wondering where you were George. That picture is so precious!

She looks like a white tiger - is she? I'm so envious of you. I love big cats. The first time I saw a snow leopard was at the San Diego zoo and I couldn't pull myself away. My companion had to practically drag me away from the area. I'm also very partial to black panthers (in the wild naturally).

When I retire from my regular work, I'm hoping to volunteer someplace working with animals. My husband says I'm a natural as animals seem to respond to me. Our neighbours cat comes running when I call his name and walks with me like a dog. Our neighbour always asks me how his cat is when I see him. He says the cat spends more time with me than with them. LOL

Absolutely gorgeous!

Silly question but would it be possible with continued handling to make the tiger tame enough to handle?? I know they will never be totally tame and always have their instincts. You see the animals in the hands of trainers who claim their big cats are as tame as their house cats. Are they just being silly or can it happen?

Sandy

Wow, George! She's one lucky girl.

Silly question but would it be possible with continued handling to make the tiger tame enough to handle??

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No. There are those that claim they can be tamed, but someone always eventually gets hurt (often seriously.) Just look at Sigmund and Roy as a prime example. They are both extremely experienced working with big cats, yet Roy was seriously injured by one (even if the injury may have been unintentional by the cat.) These big cats are far to dangerous to treat as pets, even for the most experienced person.

We've had several volunteers express interest in direct contact with the cats, and they're all told absolutely no. (And they they are invited to leave if they don't like.) We had someone with a lion she had raised who wanted to place it with us, but wanted to be able to visit. She was told these conditions would apply to her too, absolutely no direct contact.

She looks like a white tiger - is she?

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Yes she is, blue eyes and all, and this is likely the reason for the birth defect. White tigers are NOT a unique and special rare or endangered strain of tiger; this is just an uncommon but normal recessive color pattern in Bengal Tigers (natives of India and Southeast Asia.) Most white tigers (including this one) are the result of extensive captive in-breeding to get the gene to express itself. This results in a high mortality rate and high rate of birth defects. People (including some zoos) breed them because they draw so much attention and public interest (and therefore revenues). Bengal Tigers ARE seriously endangered. Even though they are by far the most numerous of all subspecies, there are still only roughly 4000 to 5000 remaining in the wild. (The Siberian is the most threatened, with estimates of less than 300 remaining in the wild.)

By the way: While the symbol of a white tiger has been frequently used, in most of Asia the actual sighting of a white tiger is considered an ominous forbearing of tragedy.