Have you ever watched a white squirrel wander around the backyard? Or seen a horse with big white patches? These animals have something in common: they are leucistic.
Leucism is the partial loss of pigment. It is not the same as albinism: albinism is the complete loss of pigmentation, and affects the pigment of the eyes. Leucism is only a partial loss of pigmentation, and can make an animal paler than normal, cause white patches, or make the animal appear completely white. It does not affect the eyes.
Most animals can be born leucistic, but some are more likely to survive than others. This largely depends on their environment. One example of leucistic cats with different survival rates is the white tiger vs. the white lion.
White Tigers
The tiger is an animal that does not survive well when leucistic. Tigers rely on their orange coat for camouflage from their prey, which tends to be red-green colorblind. Tigers that are born white have very poor camouflage; they stand out far too much against the green of their surroundings.
Only one in 10,000 tigers is naturally born leucistic. This white cub rarely survives to adulthood. There are less than 5,000 tigers in the wild today, but there are a lot of white tigers in captivity. People have purposely selected for that white color through generations of heavy inbreeding. These captive-bred white tigers would have an even worse chance of surviving than a wild-born one because of the health issues associated with inbreeding.
White tigers are not a separate subspecies. Because they don’t do well in the wild, they have no real conservation value. They are exactly what their name suggests: a tiger who just happens to be born with white fur.
White Lions
White lions occur naturally in one area: the Timbavati region of South Africa. Although first seen by Europeans in 1938, they’ve been seen by local villages for centuries. The word Timbavati means “the place where something sacred came down to earth” in the local Tsonga language, and refers to white lions.
Unlike white tigers, white lions in the region aren’t any worse hunters than their tawny counterparts. This is likely because of the pale sand, and the grass that turns very pale in the winter. Their white coat blends in with their environment. Although once extinct in the wild due to human removal and hunting, they began to reappear in wild prides in 2006.
The Global White Lion Protection Trust breeds white lions with the intent to reintroduce them to their native area. White lions have conservation value that white tigers do not. They also have cultural value: they are considered a living heritage to local Sepedi and Tsongo communities.
Leucism in animals is a natural, but not always common occurrence. Some leucistic animals survive better than others. In many, it’s just a variation in color, but there are cases where leucistic individuals are considered a separate subspecies. Either way, they should remain wild and not kept in captivity for human entertainment.
Sources
Photo 3 – https://whitelions.org/white-lion-faqs/
https://www.nps.gov/cabr/blogs/albinism-versus-leucism-in-the-wild-and-at-our-parks.htm
https://extension.illinois.edu/blogs/naturalist-news/2021-02-04-leucism-nature
https://www.wildcatsanctuary.org/8-fast-facts-white-tigers/
https://www.lionstigersandbears.org/exposing-the-cruel-reality-of-white-tigers-in-captivity/
https://whitelions.org/white-lion-key-facts/
https://whitelions.org/white-lion-faqs/
https://www.tailormadesafaris.co.za/timbavati-private-nature-reserve.html