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Is It A Good Idea To Create

Ligers? Why or Why

not?

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Is it a good idea to create Ligers? Why or Why not? Meet the Liger - The Truth About This Lion-Tiger Mix -By Sarah Wassner NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC KIDS(Issue No. 360)May 2006, pp. 30-34

      In some ways, Chris and Rapido are just like any big cats you'd see at a zoo. The cubs lazily lounge on rocks, playfully nip at each other's tails, and feast on big meaty meals. But these brothers, who live at Everland Zoo in South Korea, are anything but typical big cats. That's because Chris and Rapido are ligers, a rare mix between a male lion and a female tiger.       Sporting stripes and sometimes a shaggy mane, ligers roar like lions and chuff like tigers. Giants among the big cats, adult ligers can weigh almost as much as a lion and tiger combined. They can devour up to 30 pounds of raw meat a day, and their heads are as big around as a kid's bicycle tire!    

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      There may be fewer than 30 ligers living today. But they aren't endangered. Zoologists and other scientists don't even recognize ligers as a species. "They're hybrids, a combination of two species" says Ron Tilson, director of conservation at the Minnesota Zoo. "In the wild, lions and tigers do not coexist. They wouldn't mate."

      Many people are fascinated by the liger's huge size and odd appearance. But others believe that the existence of the animal is just plain wrong. Amazing animals--or freaky creatures? Read what experts on both sides have to say, then decide for yourself.

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   A liger wouldn't occur in the wild. Lions and tigers rarely cross paths, and even if they did, the solitary tiger and the group-minded lion would not make good partners. So most ligers are intentionally bred by humans--often for personal gain.      "People are fascinated by weird and bizarre animals" says Norma Lagutchik, a veterinary technician at the Wild Animal Orphanage in San Antonio, Texas. "People will breed ligers just to sell the cubs or attract people to private zoos.“      But what about ligers that happen unintentionally? Some caretakers have allowed the two species to share space, thinking they would just be friends. But kept together, a lion and a tiger can mate, resulting in an "accidental" liger cub.      

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That's what happened with Barney the lion and Troupette the tiger. "We provided them with an overlapping home so they could live together," says Jason Hutcherson, vice president of Wild Animal Safari in Pine Mountain, Georgia. "They immediately took to each other." The result? Liger cubs!      Is it wrong to allow this to happen, even if it's an accident? Almost all scientists say yes. "It's just not natural," Tilson says. That's why, he says, lions and tigers should not be kept together in captivity.      Besides that, ligers are often unhealthy. Because of their mismatched lion and tiger genes, they're prone to blindness, weak hearts, deafness, and short life spans. "These are animals ruined by humans," says Lagutchik, who cares for two ligers at her sanctuary. "They're all mixed up." Two of Hutcherson's cubs even developed head shakes and had trouble walking.      

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