They used to cost around $50,000 each in the USA (1992). I have seen various prices from $40,000 to $65,000. However, things have changed dramatically in the USA, the home of the captive white tiger. The Big Cat Public Safety Act, promoted by Carole Baskin (BCR), has banned the private ownership of wild cats in captivity across the country. These are private mini-zoos where individuals possess big cats as status trophies/pets. American citizens can’t do this anymore. Existing big cat owners can keep their ‘pets’ but when the cat dies, that’s it. No new private zoos are allowed.
The point of this? In my opinion, the price of white tigers must drop because the demand for them has substantially dried up. It is all about supply and demand. There will be a diminished market if demand drops off. So what do white tigers cost today in Dec 2022? Not sure but much less, perhaps half the former price or less. There may be a surfeit of white tigers held by suppliers.
There are other issues which I discuss below the infographic.
Mike Tyson
We know the old price because it was paid by Tyson paid when he bought 3 pet white tigers back in the day when he was living in Las Vegas and burning through his colossal wealth of around $300+ million. He could not keep them for long because one day when he was walking one of them like a dog on a leash it wanted to attack a neighbour’s dog. This was spotted and reported to the ASPCA. And that was that. He had to give them up because back in the day you needed a license and it seems that he did not have one.
Nowadays, you don’t want to know how much white tigers cost because you don’t want to buy one. The reason? There are 2 if you live in the USA. The first one I have mentioned: it is illegal to own them privately. Only accredited zoos can. But even then, it is terribly wrong and cruel.
RELATED: A website dedicated to the tiger.
Inbred
You probably know by now as it is all over the internet. All white tigers are badly inbred to the point where a substantial number are born with congenital defects as you see in the photos on this page. In buying one you simply support this cruel, exploitative process. They only exist in zoos as entertainers. They are commercially exploited. There is no conservation value whatsoever. The public gazes in awe at the beauty of the white tiger unaware of the backstory. How many white tiger cubs are born and killed immediately because they are deformed by inbreeding? More of the public needs to know this.
All white tigers come from one original white tiger cub who was the only one of a family wild white tigers shot dead by a senseless maharaja in India. ‘Mohan’ was captured as a cub in 1951 by Maharaja of Rewa whose hunting party in Bandhavgarh found a tigress with four 9-month-old cubs, one of which was white. All of them were shot except for Mohan was bred to normal coloured tigress called Begum.
The future
The Big Cat Public Safety Act is a massive step in the right direction for big cat and wild cat welfare in the USA, the home of pet exotic cats. But what about another federal law banning white tigers? Lock stock and barrel. End this despicable trade and cruel exploitation once and for all.
History
There would probably still be much admired white tigers in some of India’s tiger reserves if the silly Maharaja of Rewa had not been so keen to shot them. And if British army officers during the Raj hadn’t been so keen to shot them en masse for fun. Back in the day tigers were regarded as pests and vermin. Now, near extinction in the wild, they are considered precious and huge efforts are made to protect them. A testament to the stupidity, shortsightedness and short-termism of humankind.
