Summary:
India’s Tiger Census recently entered the Guinness Book of World Records and there is another good news about the big cat to cheer you up. A picture of golden tigress sighted in the Kaziranga National Park surfaced online, and went viral in no time.
The picture of Kazi 106-F, as the female tiger is known, was clicked by an Indian Forest Service officer, who then shared it on social media. As per the photographer, this is the only documentation of the golden tiger in the 21st century. However, Kaziranga National Park’s Research Officer Rabindra Sharma put forward certain facts, and the social media hype around Kazi 106-F, was directed toward another perspective, i.e., from celebration to concern. He explained that the sighting of the golden tiger is actually a matter of concern as excessive inbreeding could be the biological reason behind its colour aberration.
Tigers resort to inbreeding when their population is almost isolated without any connectivity to other landscapes, thereby causing loss of their habitat and corridor destruction.
The sighting of the golden tiger comes at a critical time. When India’s Tiger Census entered the Guinness World Records for being the world’s biggest wildlife survey, there is growing concern regarding key tiger corridors facing a threat from various reasons, such as floods, coal mines, etc.