Can a liger make it in the wild?

Question

Can a liger make it in the wild?

Answer 1

All of the posters have answered the question "Are ligers fertile?"  (incorrectly I might add) But none have answered your particular question.

Regarding Fertility:

While male ligers are sterile, female ligers can usually reproduce. Because only female ligers and tigons are fertile, a liger cannot reproduce with another liger or with a tigon. The offspring from a coupling of a female liger and a male tiger is referred to as a ti-liger, while the offspring produced from a female liger and a male lion is referred to as a li-liger.

The fertility of hybrid big cat females is well-documented across a number of different hybrids. This is in accordance with Haldane's rule: in hybrids of animals whose gender is determined by s*x chromosomes, if one gender is absent, rare or sterile, it is the heterogametic s*x (the one with two different s*x chromosomes e.g. X and Y).

According to Wild Cats of the World (1975) by C. A. W. Guggisberg, ligers and tigons were long thought to be sterile: In 1943, however, a fifteen-year-old hybrid between a lion and an 'Island' tiger was successfully mated with a lion at the Munich Hellabrunn Zoo. The female cub, although of delicate health, was raised to adulthood.

Rare reports have been made of tigresses mating with lions in the wild. Such mating may have occurred when, in uncommon circumstances, tigers were forced into ranges inhabited by the Asiatic Lion, Panthera leo persica. However, since the present-day ranges of wild lions and tigers no longer overlap, it is generally held that such a combination of species would occur very rarely.

Now, whether one could survive in the wild is another question.  Depending on the traits it inherits from its parents (color, markings, etc) A liger could do very well in the wild. They have been proven to socialize easily with lions or tigers both, and in a family unit could function just fine. They are a hybrid, but they are still a big cat with natural instincts and behaviors. You can imagine they would be just as effective at hunting and surviving as any "pure" taxon of either parent. As stated above, female ligers / tigons are usually fertile. Whether they would reproduce in the wild stands to question. Their behavior when it comes to mating is different. While a female liger is normally massive in stature, and would most likely reproduce in the wild with either a lion or tiger, a female tigon is closer to the size of a lioness and less impressive to a male tiger meaning a fertile female tigon would be less likely to breed in the wild if it were living with tigers.

Answer 2

no,they have to be cared for their entire lives and they are also infertile

Answer 3

Well, not if you want them to reproduce on their own. They're infertile.  

Answer 4

Unfortunatly no Ligers and other hybrid animals such as Mules are sterile from birth so would not be able to breed but it might be able to last its life time in the wild.

Answer 5

Yes, it's bred for its skills in magic! How can a magical animal not survive?   haha