Rare white tiger among three cubs born in safari park

JALPAIGURI: Visitors heading to north Bengal this summer vacation have a reason to rejoice. Sheela, the only tigress at Bengal Safari Park on the outskirts of Siliguri, gave birth to three cubs, one of which is white, on Friday night.
V K Yadav, member secretary of West Bengal Zoo Authority, confirmed the news saying that the cubs and the mother have been kept under strict watch and that all the four were doing fine.

Located some 11km from Siliguri off the NH-31 - geographically the area falls in Jalpaiguri district - the Bengal Safari Park is the first of its kind in the region. Sheela and Snehasish, who fathered the cubs, were brought from Odisha's Nandankanan.

Initially, they were kept in separate enclosures and given time to get accustomed with the park's ambience. They were released in the open in January last year. In November, another tiger - Vivan - was brought from the Tata Steel Zoological Park in Jamshedpur.

"Initially, we were sceptical if Sheela and Snehasish would mate. But soon, they developed a bonding. It was perhaps the beginning of the new story," an official said.

An expert said that for a white Bengal tiger to be born, both parents must carry the unusual gene (recessive gene) for white colouring. It's a pigmentation variant of the Bengal tiger that has the black stripes typical of the Bengal tiger, but carries a white or near-white coat.

It may be noted that 3 white tigers were born in the Nandankanan Zoo in Bhubaneswar in 1980. Their parents were an orange father-daughter pair called Deepak and Ganga. Sources said one of their wild-caught ancestors would have carried the recessive white gene and it showed up when Deepak was mated to his daughter. These white tigers are therefore referred to as the Odisha strain.

Apart from tigers and three species of deer, the safari park has a one-horned rhino, two Himalayan black bears, gharials, aviaries housing different species of birds and trained elephants. A leopard enclosure covering a stretch of around 2km inside the park is exclusively used for leopard safari.

"The forest department gave a natural habitat to the tigers. Authorities should take this as an instance and allow captive breeding in other places too," said Animesh Bose of Himalayan Nature and Adventure Foundation.