Carmen's story
and journey to freedom

White tiger cub Carmen was rejected by her mother very soon after the birth. Already as a two-month old she was abused for commercial purposes in circus for taking photos with visitors. Her claws were sanded so that she wouldn't scratch the visitors. She got into our care when she was three-months old. She had an inappropriate diet at her previous owner and so when she came to us we adjusted her feeding and put her on more of a solid diet which is more suitable for cubs. Life of such cub is very stressful because they need their mother most of all (if the mother can't take care of the cub for some reason, the care-taker becomes the substitute) and not hundreds, thousands of people that want to take a photo with them and pet them. Thanks to our keepers and their care, she gradually got used to her new home and she has a very happy life.

In the wild there are about 2500 individuals. Which actually makes the Bengal tiger the most populated tiger subspecies, which is an alarming current state. There used to be 9 subspecies of tigers: Bengal, Siberian, Indochinese, Malayan, South China, Sumatran, Caspian, Javan and Bali tiger. The last three have gone completely extinct, one lives in the wild and the rest are endangered species.

White tiger is not a separate subspecies - this colour version - leucistic form of colour - only occurs among the Bengal subspecies, with regular stripes and blue eyes.

The estimation is that only 1 in 10 000 of born Bengal tigers is white in the wild.

For the ADOPTION DONATION for Carmen we would like to thank: BRANISLAV MIKULA.