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Captive tigers 'may save species' (BBC)

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eppur_se_muova Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-21-08 07:51 PM
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Captive tigers 'may save species' (BBC)
Many tigers held in captivity have "pure-bred ancestry" and could play a key role in the survival of diminishing wild populations, a study suggests.

A team using a new method for assessing the genetic ancestry of tigers found that a number of "generic" animals were actually pure-bred subspecies.

Writing in Current Biology, they added that these tigers also had genomic diversity no longer found in the wild.

Current estimates suggest that only about 3,000 tigers remain in the wild.

In contrast, the international team of researchers noted, the global population of captive tigers numbered between 15,000 to 20,000.


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more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7353407.stm
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