Original source : www.thepetcollective.tv
Posted : February 2014
Author : Travis Rand Greenwood
Last week we stumbled across heartbreaking images of Kenny,
a white tiger born with pronounced physical deformities that resulted from a
program of for-profit, big cat inbreeding (white tigers, as we learned, are not
native to the wild; their distinctive hue is tied to a recessive gene). The
original post was short on details and context - and later revealed to be
almost entirely plagiarized from a more reputable source, Live Leak - but we
started to dig deeper and a bit of Google sleuthing revealed that Kenny had
passed from cancer in 2008.
Kenny’s life - and that of many other white tigers, whose
coat make them highly coveted and prized by zoos, hotels, and other
destinations with dubious agendas - is equal parts cautionary tale and
heartwarming twist of fate: his parents were siblings forced to mate and his
early years were spent in the hands of the same unscrupulous breeder; along
with his brother, Willie, he was rescued by the Turpentine Creek Wildlife
Reserve in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, in 2000, where he lived out the rest of
his life in relative care and comfort.
We reached out to officials at the reserve and here’s what
Patricia Quinn, their spokeswoman, had to say to about Kenny.
Thanks for asking about Kenny. He has become quite the
legend in the years since we had him and since he passed away. Kenny’s date of
birth was 4/4/98 and he passed away on 6/28/08 due to cancer. We are not quite sure about the Down Syndrome diagnosis, but
I can tell you for certain that Kenny was the result of inbreeding – a
tremendous problem with white Bengal Tigers. Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge
was asked to take in Kenny and his brother, Willie, from a breeder in Bentonville, AR,
because he could not sell them. Both of the male tigers were rescued by us in
October of 2000.
According to the breeder, neither of them could be sold
because of their deformities. Kenny, as you can see from any videos, had a
severe facial deformity (which was caused by inbreeding). His mouth was also
malformed, resulting in his being unable to fully close it. His brother Willie,
an orange Bengal Tiger, was severely cross-eyed, another result of inbreeding. Their parents (both white Bengals) were full brother and
sister and had been bred for several years in an effort to create additional
white Bengals to sell.
Several years after we brought in Kenny and Willie, the
breeder called us again to take the parent tigers. The mother, Loretta, was
producing cubs that were short lived and/or stillborn and he could no longer
‘use her’ for breeding purposes so he wanted to give her and her brother/mate, Conway, away.
All four of these white Bengals lived out their remaining
lives with us. Kenny lived to be ten years old, Willie lived to be 12 years
old. The parents, who appeared to have no genetic deficiencies, lived to be
much older. Conway
died at the age of 19 years and Loretta, our longest lived tiger to date, just
recently passed away at the age of 23.
Kenny was non-aggressive, very friendly with our staff
members and an obvious favorite with visitors because of his personality. Most
people ‘fell in love’ with his friendliness combined with his strange looks. To
them, and to us, he was beautiful. He shared his enclosure with his brother for
the eight years that he was with us.
I think the first takeaway here is that any kind of “mill”
breeding, where money is paramount above the health and well-being of the
animals, is wrong. The second takeaway is that cats and dogs aren’t the only
animals living in “mill” situations; critters from the everyday to the exotic
are subject to needless suffering and cruelty that results from breeding of
this kind (often done under the guise of “conservation”). In Kenny’s situation,
at least, he got to spend the last portion of his life in a healthy environment
with people who cared about him and his species.
R.I.P. Kenny the tiger.
~Blog Admin~
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