Many captive tigers are of purebred ancestry; finding raises their conservation value
Monday, September 15, 2008 - 00:22
in Biology & Nature
Tigers held in captivity around the world—including those in zoos, circuses, and private homes—may hold considerable conservation value for the rapidly dwindling wild populations around the world, according to a new report published online on April 17th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. Using a new method for assessing the genetic ancestry of tigers, researchers discovered that many apparently "generic" tigers actually represent purebred subspecies and harbor genomic diversity no longer found in nature.