Luckily, the zookeepers stepped in and took on the task of hand-rearing the little cub. They are giving her around-the-clock care, feeding her a milk formula every three hours. Nieve is growing fast and currently weighs two pounds. She is also starting to develop stripes on her white fur!
The zoo plans to keep Nieve until she is six months old when she will be released back into the wild.
While the zoo is still trying to determine the father of little Nieve, they are confident that its mother is Rosa, one of two tigers living at the zoo. However, Sacasa also said that it’s possible that there could be another white tiger out there somewhere who fathered Nieve.
While it is true that white tigers are not a separate species, they are not simply the result of a recessive gene carried by their parents. White tigers are actually produced through selective breeding in captivity – specifically, breeding orange Bengal tigers withSiamese (white) tigers.
This process has created an artificial population of white tigers who carry the genes for whiteness. Because there is no truly “pure” strain of white tiger (all captive specimens have been bred from other whites), many suffer from a range of health problems related to their inbred state.
Nicaragua zoo director’s wife Marina Arguello takes care of little lion cub until it is strong enough to feed itself.
