KAZIRANGA: A golden tiger made an unusual appearance in the wild in Kaziranga National Park in Assam on Wednesday.
The extraordinary event occurred last evening while the visitors were in the park's Kohora range. They were fortunate to have seen the Golden Tiger, which officials say is one in 10,000 tiger cubs worldwide.
A genetic mutation affecting the tiger's ability to produce pheomelanin, a reddish-yellow pigment in its fur during hair growth, is the cause of the striking change in colour to golden.
Since about one out of every 10,000 cubs born worldwide has this feature, such tigers are extremely rare.
There are four of these golden tigers in India's Kaziranga National Park.
Recently, the existence of the Asiatic golden cat (Catopuma temminckii) in the Manas National Park had been confirmed by a team consisting of representatives from the Assam Forest Department, conservationists from Aaranyak, the region's premier organisation for biodiversity conservation, and numerous other conservationists from other regions of India.
Although a direct sighting in 2007 indicated that the species should be present in the area, an extensive annual systematic camera trapping effort of 39,700 trap-days over eight years between 2011 and 2018 produced no results.
The medium-sized Asiatic golden cat can be found throughout southern China, Southeast Asia, and the northeastern Indian subcontinent. Scheduled-I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, protects the species, which is listed as "Near Threatened" on the IUCN Red List.
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