We are very fortunate to have a rainbow of colours in the Siberian including the silver, golden and colourpoint or Neva Masquerade. Lately I have noticed more breeders refusing to breed colourpoint, segregating them and not acknowledging their heritage. Ironically a lot of these 'traditional' cats are registered with TICA who accepts ALL COLOURS in all breeds.
Seperation by colour is known as aparteid...it caused much destruction of life in humans...and should not be practiced in any population.
Lets breed 'preferred colours' and not 'only traditional'. Lets not forget that this cat originated from the streets and farms of Russia (not the forest as some suggest..there is no registry body recognised in the UK that calls this cat Siberian Forest).
Colours would have survived according to natural selection or human preference (black cat lucky or not?, tortie girls are best mousers etc!). It can be argued that white, silver and especially shaded slver may not have been great survivors in the 'wild' population. Colourpoint may be attributed to mutation and may have naturally occured or been introduced to the Siberian feral population PRIOR to 1989 so it is included in the recognised Siberian gene pool (Even FIFe who have argued the point since 1989, who have now sadly seperated the breed, have retained all the registered cats that are point carriers as Siberian). Taking these first cats from the streets and choosing their mates make the modern Siberian a man-made (or more usually woman-made!) and no longer a 'natural' breed.
Lets concentrate on breeding Siberian 'type' and good health and not on colour which counts for little or no points in showing!
No comments:
Post a Comment