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Monday, November 23, 2009

Photo: Captive Tigers Harbor Rare "Purebred" Genes


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A captive tigress snarls at onlooking tourists while nursing her two-week old cubs in a Bangkok, Thailand, zoo.

A new study has found that many of the 15,000 to 20,000 tigers in zoos, farms, circuses, and private households could be "purebreds" from one of the five remaining tiger subspecies—a potential boon for captive breeding programs.

Photograph by Michael Nichols/NGS