| For the doubting Thomases out there, here are two of the three white tigers born at Kingdom's 3, Stockbridge on Saturday, June 18, 1977. The owner was Baron Julius Von Uhl. |
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
From Richard Reynolds
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15 comments:
Richard Reynolds,
Thank you for the picture. I though there was a "Stockbridge" in Canada. I had heard of the births at Kingdom 3. I didn't realize "Stockbridge" and Kingdom 3 were one in the same. I just always thought Kingdom 3 was located outside of Atlanta. Thank you for the photo. What became of these two cubs, and the birth eminent that it mentions are those the ones born at the Baltimore fair, that Ringling bought. I only knew of Gunther having Maharani, not 2 whites.
Richard Reynolds-Thank you.
Kingdom’s 3 (nee Lion Country Safari) was located off I-75 about 20 miles south of Atlanta. The nearest post office is Stockbridge. They once had a huge collection of animals.
Paul,
You mentioned documentation of the sale of 3 tigers to Ringling, does that documentation state how may white and how many gold. What were the colors of the cubs born at the Baltimore Fair, Richard.
Thank you,
Wade Burck
Paul,
In the sale of the 3 tigers to Ringling, does your documentation state what colors they were? That is important as there may have been gold carrier tigers absorbed into either Charlys act or Gunthers act. Thank you.
Richard, The photo shows two cubs, but I believe you said three? Where did they go, or who were they sold to? Thank you,
Wade Burck
Wade-I did'nt see your message until just now. The only documentation that I had about the three cubs born in Baltimore going to Ringling Bros. was from the chapter written by your friend A.K. Roychoudhury in "Tigers Of The World". I know that book came out of the tiger symposium which you attended in 1984 with the Maharaja of Rewa. None of the newspaper articles said that the cubs were sold to anyone, but they were only one day old. All of the newspaper articles said that there were two white cubs. I actually mailed a copy of the newspaper article to Richard Reynolds so maybe he will post it for you if he's not concerned about it being a copyright infringement. Regards Paul
Wade-PS I forgot to mention there was also one orange male in the litter. There was one white male and one white female I assumed was Maharani who died in 1984 according to Roychoudhury. Maybe you should ask him. Regards Paul
Wade-I was looking at the information I have concerning Susie the tigress. All I know is that she was born in the Spring of 1959 in a zoo which may have been in Florida. She was bought by David Hoover of Sarasota, Florida, and Mr. Beatty. She was loaned to a circus and then sold to the Sioux Falls Zoo in 1965 I think. Regards Paul
Paul,
I have heard of phone tag, but this is ridiculous. I just found your email, in my spam folder (don't know why), and just now sent you a response to your email. LOL
Regards,
Wade Burck
Paul,
I believe Maharani died before 1984. But it is not important. As she did not contribute to the gene pool she is a footnote, and of no importance.
Regards,
Wade Burck
Does anybody have any information on litters born from the same parents as these cubs prior to 1977?
I came back to this blog because I wanted to see what Richard Reynolds had previously posted on the subject of supposed pygmy elephants. There is another circus blog on which a gentleman posted a picture of himself holding a white tiger cub in 1975. I will have to come back to this in a moment. I just want to make sure I can leave a message.
You have made it more difficult to leave a message. I just wanted to say that a gentleman posted a picture of himself holding a white tiger cub in 1975 on a different circus blog. I was astounded by this because there were so few white tigers in the United States at the time. As far as I was aware the National Zoo had five, which were one male named Ranjit, and four females named Mohini, Rewati, Bharat, and Priya. In 1975 John F. Cuneo Jr. of the Hawthorn Circus Corp. of Grayslake, Illinois had two white tigers, a male named Tony and a female named Bagheera. That should have been it. It turned out that the man in the picture had been an associate of Baron Julius Von Uhl when he was performing with the Great London Circus I think it was. In 1975 Raja and Sheba II (Von Uhl's tigers) had six tiger cubs in Texas. The litter consisted of three white cubs and three orange. Two of the white cubs were named Boris and Natasha by the gentleman in the posted picture, I assume after the Russian spy cartoon characters, so I'm guessing he thought they were Siberian tigers. Rumor has it that Boris and Natasha were sold to Siegfried & Roy. I have been really intrigued by the fact that a number of orange tigers in the U.S. suddenly started producing white offspring in the 1970s. I know that an amateur researcher in Australia named Rhys W. Walkley tried to unravel this mystery and failed miserably. It seems that all of the tigers in question were close relatives, siblings in fact, who had been born at the Sioux Falls Zoo. These tigers included Raja and Sheba II, Baron Julius Von Uhl's pair of tigers, and three tigers belonging in John F. Cuneo Jr., two males named Saber and Prince, and a female named Sheba I. Their parents at the Sioux Falls Zoo were a Bengal tigress named Susie and a Siberian tiger. The pair produced 13 or 14 cubs and then Susie was paired with a male Bengal tiger for breeding, but he killed her. Susie had been the property of Clyde Beatty. Wade Burck told me that both Von Uhl and Cuneo knew that these tigers had white ancestry and were descended from the Maharaja of Rewa's white tiger Mohan. Raja and Sheba II along with their orange daughter Obie were later acquired from Baron Julius Von Uhl by the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha. Obie was apired with Ranjit on breeding loan from the National Zoo. He was born in the Cincinnati Zoo in 1974. He was a registered pure-Bengal tiger in addition to being white as a fringe benefit of inbreeding. Another orange tiger named Buck sired a white cub in the Racine Zoo in Wisconsin around 1980 I think it was. The mother was one of his daughters. Buck killed the white cub. I think it is likely that Buck was one of the 13 or 14 cubs born at the Sioux Falls Zoo. One of them went to a Zoo in Japan. The mother of the white cub born at the Racine Zoo was later paired with a male cub of Raja and Sheba II.
I was thinking that in 1975 John F. Cuneo Jr. may have had another male white tiger named Frosty. There was another place on this blog where somebody posted a picture of Gunther with his white tiger Maharani as a big cub. I think it was a newspaper picture. Maharani was another cub of Raja and Sheba II born at the Baltimore County Fair in 1976, in a litter which included two white cubs and one orange, on the exact same day that a litter of five tiger cubs were born at the Cincinnati Zoo, four of which were white and one orange, all nieces and nephews of Maharani fathered by Cuneo's white tiger Tony. Baron Julius Von Uhl had a total of nine white tigers in his career by my count, which is the same number that the National Zoo had in total, and their last white tiger, named Panghur Ban, was the son of Obie (another of Von Uhl's orange tigers). Panghur Ban was born at the Henry Doorly Zoo and was fathered by Ranjit who was on breeding loan from the National Zoo. Panghur Ban's brother Chester became the first white tiger in Australia when he was exhibited at Taronga Zoo in Sydney. Years ago I had an opportunity to speak to the daughter of a Mr. James Witchie. I think she was in Sandusky, Ohio. She had her own pet white tiger. Her father owned a male orange tiger acquired from Von Uhl which was another cub of Raja and Sheba II. He loaned it to the Racine Zoo for breeding with Buck's daughter. Eventually John F. Cuneo had 60 white tigers and 40 orange and maybe a lot more after that. He had the largest collection of tigers in the world. Maybe two years ago I met a German lady tiger trainer who worked for Cuneo. She had a troop of orange tigers.
This is the gentleman who hand reared the six tiger cubs from Raja and Sheba II born in 1975 in Texas, possibly in Waco: The Circus Blog http://www.thecircusblog.com/ . When I was a kid zoos which had white tigers made up a very exclusive club and there were none in circuses. The Crandon Park Zoo in Miami had one and the National Zoo had two or three. The Bristol Zoo in England bought a breeding pair from the Maharaja of Rewa in 1963 named Champak and Chameli. They later imported a second male from New Delhi Zoo named Roop. I think the British had an easier time of it because of their historical association with India and Commonwealth ties. An orange brother of Bristol Zoo's white tigers lived in Paris Zoo. New Delhi. Calcutta, and Bombay zoos had white tigers. We talk about orange tigers carrying white genes, but in a way it's the other way around. There is no such thing as a white gene as such. It's an inhibitor gene. All white tigers carry orange genes which have been switched off by the inhibitor gene, which a white tiger must inherit from both parents, and since the gene is rare this has often involved inbreeding. Years ago I met a tiger trainer in Montreal named Alan Gold. He had a large troop of white tigers. I forget how many. I met and spoke with him the day before a Hawthorn Circus elephant killed a trainer in Hawaii. I was told that Alan Gold now runs a charter boat company in Hawaii (which sounds like a dream. I feel tempted to ask him for a job now.). He told me he was thinking of becoming a scuba instructor. He's an incredibly nice guy just like the man who raised the six tiger cubs in 1975 for Baron Julius Von Uhl. I have found over the years as I have been researching this subject that circus people are a hell of a lot nicer than zoo people. Another tiger trainer I knew was Andy Goldfarb who worked at MarineWorld AfricaUSA in Vallejo, California. They used to raise tiger cubs for Josip Marcan. Now Andy Goldfarb works with clouded leopards at a zoo in Washington state. By the way Cuneo's white tiger Tony used to appear in a TV commercial for MarineWorld & Game Farm in Niagara Falls, Canada, but that was eons ago. Cuneo's orange tiger Sheba I seemed to prefer a Siberian tiger as a breeding partner rather than either of her brothers Saber and Prince. That Siberian tiger was possibly her uncle born at the Como Zoo. He was cross-eyed. Most of Sheba I's litters did not include white cubs, but many of her offspring who would have been three quarters Siberian did produce white offspring. In 1970 Jimmy Stewart went on the Johnny Carson Show and announced that his wife was going to buy a white tiger from the Maharaja of Rewa for the Los Angeles Zoo, but the promised cat never materialized.
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