An extremely rare GOLDEN TIGER has been spotted – one of only 30 in the world.
Wildlife expedition leader Gaurav Ramnarayanan said he first noticed “something white” lying next to the road.
The 25-year-old told Jam Press: “I grabbed my zoom lens and checked it out.
“I noticed it was an extremely rare golden tiger – a Bengal Tiger with a colour variation caused by recessive genes.
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“We enjoyed his presence for around 15 to 20 minutes, then he walked towards us and disappeared in the bushes.
“We thought we lost him, but he appeared again and came really close to us.
“When I took the main pictures, he was only about 160 feet away.”
Gaurav spotted the rare big cat in the Kaziranga National Park, India.
He added: “I was giving a tour for two Australian tourists in a Suzuki Jimny when we were lucky enough to see this.
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“It happened during an evening safari.”
Gaurav claimed: “This is only the second time this golden tiger has ever been spotted in the wild.”
He stated: “We weren’t looking for tigers at the time, we were more focussed on birds and rhinos.”
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He said he mounted a 2x TC lens on his Nikon Z 400mm camera and “tapped in the inbuilt 1.4x”, but the pictures came out too small.
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He then had to drive about 300 feet closer to the golden tiger to capture the incredible images.
Gaurav said: “Bold as he was, he walked straight at us. First the 2x came off and next I switched off the inbuilt TC.
“From 1120mm to 400mm, he kept coming closer and casually walked off.”
He added: “Incredible day, incredible sighting, incredible big cat.”
There are only around 30 golden tigers left in the world, all of which live in national parks or local zoos with captive breeding programmes.
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