Our tiger named Namaste` is a male Bengal (Indian) tiger.  His ancestors were found in the forests of Rewa in central India.  All of the 250 or so captive white tigers are descended from Mohan, a wild white Bengal tiger caught by the Maharaja of Rewa in 1951.

Namaste's striking white coat and crossed blue eyes are due to the expression of recessive genes.  He was hand-raised in Las Vegas and donated to the zoo by a magician, Dirk Arthur, who was impressed with our world-class one-acre tiger enclosure.  "Namaste" is an Sanskrit word that is loosely translated as "Aloha".

Namaste was born on September 30, 1998 and arrived in Hilo April 16, 1999.  He was 7 months old and weighed 80 pounds.  He was held in his night house in quarantine until August 14, 1999.  The life span of tigers in captivity is 15 to 20 years.  Sexual maturity is reached at age 3 to 4 years.  Namaste's weight now is over 500 pounds.  His diet consists of 3 whole chickens, 10 lb. meat, ground bone and vitamins per day.

Male tigers are solitary animals.  Namaste is very happy in his home.  He knows everything and everybody associated with the zoo.  Some of his daily routines include patrolling, basking in the sun, playing in the water with his toys, sleeping, sharpening claws, posing regally, and stalking Arnie, the water buffalo, in the next enclosure.  He is fed at 3:30 every afternoon in his night house where he spends the night and is let out the next morning.  He has caught and eaten several jungle fowl and peacocks in his enclosure.

Other behaviors that may be observed are the following:

Chuffing -- a soft "Brrrrr" sound made through the nose and open mouth, a tiger's way of purring.

Sniffing -- a grimace called "flehmen" made with wrinkled nose and tongue out.  The scent is analyzed by the Jacobson's (vomeronasal) organ, a highly specialized olfactory area in the head.  House cats do this too!

Marking -- both male and female tigers mark their territories by spraying a combination of urine and anal gland material on trees, clumps of grass, etc.  They also scratch the ground and vegetation and leave fecal masses lying around.  The male tiger will defend his territory.

The future for tigers in their natural habitats is at risk.  Of the eight original races three are extinct:  the Balinese, the Caspian and the Javan.  The Chinese tiger is on the brink of extinction due to having been declared a pest and hunted during the 1960s and 1970s.  The Siberian tiger, although protected, is still hunted.  There are between 250 and 400 Siberian tigers.  The Sumatran tiger numbers about 400.  Because they live in five isolated locations the gene pool in each location is limited, possibly causing inbreeding.  The Indochinese tiger (Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, and Malaysia) is less endangered, numbering between 800 and 2000. In Malaysia, tigers are well protected in the parks, but there is much habitat destruction elsewhere.  The situation for the Indian tiger is the best with between 3000 and 5000 tigers, mostly in India but with a few in Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and West Burma.

Tigers were openly hunted in India until the 1960s.  Then a great effort was made to protect the tiger, which went well through the 1980s.  Since that time protecting the tiger has become increasingly difficult.  The Indian government does not have enough money to adequately patrol parks and other tiger habitats.  Poaching has become a problem.  It is fueled by the mystique of the tiger in China, other parts of Asia and the Arab countries. There is a ready market for tiger skins for clothing and decor, bones and other body parts for medicines and virility.  Although local and international laws prohibit the sale of these items, the laws are not enforced in much of the world. 

Also contributing to the Indian tiger's unpredictable future is habitat loss.  Indian tigers are jungle animals, and trees are being cut in record numbers not only for logging operations but also by the local people for firewood.  Furthermore, the growing human population of India is expanding into territory that once belonged to tigers.

Tigers are easily bred in captivity, but whether they could then be released into the wilderness is very doubtful.  First, will there be a wilderness in which to release them? Then, it is believed that young tigers learn to hunt by observing their mother and following her example.  And, despite huge efforts, rehabilitating large mammals to the wild has had a very low success rate.  They are now considered an endangered species.