Ligers Love Swimming
Ligers are one of the very few big cats in the world which not only love to swim but they are also great swimmers. Ligers inherit their love for swimming from their mothers i.e., the tigress. Remember a liger is a hybrid offspring of a lion and a tigress. Therefore; it inherits mixed behavior of both lions and tigers. On the other hand; lions can also swim as well but they usually avoid water and only enter the water if it is extremely necessary. Tigers on the other hand even love to sit inside water. Bengal tigers are known to swim more than 15 kilometers in search of a prey. Therefore; when a crossbreeding occurs in between the lion and a tiger, a liger inherits its love for swim from its mother.
Since ligers do not live in the wild; their love for swim is only observed and witnessed within captivity such as zoos and animal safari parks etc. A very famous animal safari park known as Myrtle Beach Safari is one of the pioneers to record the love of the ligers for swimming in water. They have a huge pool and a pond at their safari park in which their ligers and other big cats love to swim. Dr. Bhagavan Antle; who is the Director of the Myrtle Beach Safari Park states that a liger possesses the best traits of both lions and tigers altogether and its love for swimming is one such best trait which it inherits from tigers.
Wynnewood Zoo at Oklahoma, USA is another best spot to witness a liger swimming in a small pond. They have a huge enclosure for 2 ligers and a tiger and within that enclosure there is a huge water pond, within which ligers and tigers love to swim. In one the videos from Wynnewood Zoo a huge ball is thrown into the water and the ligers jumped straight into the water to play with it in no time. Wynnewood Zoo also has Liligers, Tiligers and even L3ligers but we don’t have any evidence that whether these second and third generation liger hybrids love to swim as well.
Hongshan Forest Zoo in China is also famous for having ligers as well. The zoo has at least 4 ligers and it has made a huge swimming pool within the enclosures of liger. Ligers along with tigers love to swim within this swimming pool and in the hot climate even love to stay inside the water for longer periods of time to stay cool. Staying in water for longer periods of time makes ligers closer in behavior to the tigers, when it comes to the preference and love for water.
In the big cat family usually it is believed that tigers are the only big cats which love to swim. Now ligers have also joined the listing of an excellent big cat swimmer. However; there is another big cat which loves to swim and catch its prey inside the water. It is called jaguar. Jaguars are excellent swimmers and they are the third biggest cat in the world after tiger and lion if we exclude hybrids such ligers, liligers, litigons, and tiligers etc.
Apart from ligers, tigons which are the hybrid crossbred of a tiger and a lioness also love to stay in water but we haven’t seen them that much in water in our observations. Tigons are also seen swimming within a small water pond in Dubai. Liligers may not have a big preference for water because lion being their father has more dominant genes within them. On the contrary; tiligers might have a greater preference for water because they are fathered by tigers who love to swim. This is just a guess work because liligers and tiligers which we have observed so far didn’t have any water pond or pool within their enclosures.
