Somehow there's something doubly sad about a zoo within the historic range of the Caspian tiger housing a white tiger in such an awful cage. To be fair, if some of the well endowed zoos in Europe and N America made money available to places like this rather than looking to build multi-million dollar exhibits when cheaper options existed, then maybe exhibits like this would disappear.
bengal tiger When I see a zoo enclosure like this in a relatively poor country, I wonder about the general standard of living for the human populatyion there. this tiger may well be better fed and housed than its human neighbours.
There was a BBC programme a while back - State of the Ark, possibly - that featured Yervan Zoo. It did look pretty grim, but was staffed by massively dedicated keepers whose own living conditions were, as FBBird suggests, pretty poor. This does, of course, raise the ethical issue of whether somewhere that is so poorly resourced should be trying to maintain a zoo, however good the intentions might be. In 1987 I visited Yervan as part of a Soviet-sponsored trip to extend the hand of freedom to the youth of the West; it is a great place. We drove past the zoo, but to my huge frustration I was unable to go in, and instead had to visit a local hospital to witness the regional development in the USSR. I kick myself for this - i don't think I'll be back in Armenia anytime soon, sadly.