Poor guys, they seem to have got some bug or something. It has been a sad week with 5 big cats dying in the past week at Bangalore’s Bannerghatta National Park or Biological Park. Two of them were old Bengal tigers and a White Tiger who, officials say, has died of an almost 3 months battle with kidney disease. And another, a cub which probably died of salmonella and E.coli. Really really sad.

Read more here and here.

Anyway, I feel someone has supplied real bad chicken meat there. Hmm…

Some of my old friends (who I hope are still running around):

He was quite majestic looking and not at all bothered about people around.

This guy was a bit uneasy around us. He was lying under the shades when we came and proceeded to get into the man made pool for a quick dip.

This guy was totally cool. All pictures were taken this April – on the 24th to be precise.

Some other pictures I liked:

One of the truly free guys. He was on the rampage and fighting turf wars all around us on the footpaths and on the trees.

Mother and two baby monkeys (Rhesus monkeys) watching out for the big guy in the previous picture.

And two butterflies ‘going at it’ at the butterfly park adjacent to BBP .

Please do check out my flickr set too.

This is something totally unheard of for me until today. I was looking at the popular posts on my blog and as usual Top 10 Hybrid Animals has been the topmost blog for more than a year now. To celebrate this, I thought it would be a great idea to have Hybrid / Mutant animals week. To start it off, here we go with the White Lion.

Sources – Wikipedia – White Lion, West Midland Safari Park, The Global White Lion Protectorate, The Messy Beast and Messy Beast again.

The white lion is occasionally found in wildlife reserves in South Africa and is a rare color mutation of the Kruger subspecies of lion (Panthera leo krugeri). It has been perpetuated by selective breeding in zoos around the world. White lions are not a separate subspecies and they have never been common in the wild.

White lions are not albino lions. Instead, the white color is caused by a recessive gene known as chinchilla or color inhibitor.

Prized for their rarity, the White Lions were artificially removed from their natural habitat into captive breeding/hunting programs in South Africa, and sent to zoos and circuses around the globe, most famously Siegfried and Roy’s magic act in Las Vegas.

Tragically, all White Lions today are in captivity. After their forced removals from their sacred homelands, they have been extinct in the wild for over 12 years.

Though not as common as white tigers, white lions are now being found in more and more zoos and may well be the current “must have” big cat. Their value as attractions may well send them down the same path as the white Bengal tiger: mass production, inbreeding and indiscriminate crossing with other subspecies e.g. to produce larger, showier manes for circus acts.

For more pictures and information please visit Wikipedia – White Lion, West Midland Safari Park, The Global White Lion Protectorate, The Messy Beast and Messy Beast again.

No more Ghost Whisperer!!! Here comes the best of all “whisperers” (what is that word anyway) – The Lion Whisperer.

Link Via Hemmy.net