Hybrid Animals: Humans Playing God

Everyone knows that there is a very, very large variety of animals that are out there among us. But science has interfered with the wild, and as always it is us humans who come up with the idea to blend such animals as tiger with lions, wolves with dogs, whales and dolphins, and etc. These animals are called hybrids and although it is rare in the wild for species to inter-mate with one another, it is getting very popular with humans forcing the mixing with wild animals held in captivity. I personally don't like the idea of humans meddling with the instincts of animals, however, what are the facts? Is this a good thing or a bad thing for those interspecies animals?

Big cats have been the most popular to breed. Zoos once bred exotic looking hybrid big cats to attract the public, now they are being bred as pets. Normally the big cat species have different lifestyles and rarely meet, if they do meet there is more conflict than there is romance to mate. To create these hybrids, the cats are raised together to over come any natural hostility between the species. Sometimes the hybrids are created accidentally where the cats are housed together and the keeps didn't realize that the cats could or would even mate.

Inbreeding holds potential problems because the limited gene pool that is caused by continued inbreeding can cause deleterious genes. Mating of closely related individuals can produce uniform or predictable offspring. Hidden genes can show up and be eliminated. Individuals will breed pure genes and or double up on the good genes to eliminate unwanted traits. However, it can also double up on weaknesses as well. The loss of immune system response as well as reproductive failures and fewer offspring is a huge disadvantage.