With very sad hearts, we have made the decision that Baikal, our White Tiger will no longer to returning to Paradise Wildlife Park, and we will no longer house White Tigers from this point on. Instead, he will be staying at our sister site, the Big Cat Sanctuary permanently.
Our sister site acts not just a breeding centre for endangered big cats but also a home for retired zoo cats and rescued cats as well. Baikal has been there for the past 18 months whilst we have been busy building new habitats for our animals at Paradise and will now call it home for good.
Conservation has always been at the heart of what we do at Paradise Wildlife Park, and over the coming years we are going to be increasing what we do, both on site and also around the world.
White Tigers do not hold conservation value in terms of breeding and continuing their species. They are not a separate species of tiger, and sadly only really exist due to inbreeding in captivity as there is no breeding programme for them. There are no white tigers in the wild that we know of, they are simply just Bengal tigers that carry a leucitic gene. It is believed they only occur 1 in every 30,000 cubs in the wild and the last one seen in the wild, was in the 1950’s. All of the White Tigers in the world today, can be traced back to that individual.
This is also a similar case for White Lions, which is why we will also not be replacing our white lions when they all naturally pass away.
However, these animals will still remain under our care at Paradise and the Big Cat Sanctuary, where our dedicated team will continue to provide the best welfare possible for them for the remainder of their lives. They do also still act as great educational ambassadors for their wild counterparts and do help us to raise funds for our ongoing care of the animals between our parks and our conservation work globally.
We will of course miss having Baikal at Paradise, but he is still a part of the animal family we have between our two parks, and you can still see him by booking to do a tour or experience or by purchasing a ticket for our annual open days at the Big Cat Sanctuary.
We do still have Tigers at Paradise, as our stunning new habitat ‘Land of The Tigers’, which is home to endangered Amur Tigress sisters Aleena and Siberia, opens this October!
We do hope you can understand our reasons for this decision as we feel this is what is best for Baikal, our parks and our role in wildlife conservation.
In the coming weeks, we will announce the new exciting species that Paradise will becoming a home to, so please bear with us!
Thank you and we look forward to seeing you at Paradise again soon!
