MEAD, Wash. \u2014 Staff at Cat Tales Wildlife Center are mourning the loss of Nalin, a white Bengal tiger who became a beloved fixture at the facility before being euthanized Thursday due to an incurable cancer.<\/p>\n
Nalin, who was nearly 18 years old, had developed a lesion in his mouth, prompting wildlife center staff to make the difficult decision to end his suffering. The tiger had called Cat Tales home for nearly a decade, and he had become a fan favorite for visitors.<\/p>\n
Lisa Grey, executive director of Cat Tales, said the staff was concerned about Nalin’s quality of life.<\/p>\n
“Solution would have been — if we did not euthanize — would be to go in to remove all of the cancer, surrounding tissue and bone structure. And we just couldn’t fathom seeing a tiger without his full skull structure. That’s not right,” Grey said.<\/p>\n
In his time at Cat Tales, Grey said Nalin’s personality endeared him to both guests and staff.<\/p>\n
“Nalin was, I’ll say, a fan favorite. The guests loved him, the staff loved him,” Grey said.<\/p>\n
Nalin became known for his boisterous personality and playful antics. He had a mischievous streak that kept staff entertained.<\/p>\n
“He’d walk by very casual, and then he’d double back on them just to get a rise out of people. So he had kind of a fun, prankster personality, I would say,” Grey said.<\/p>\n
Before arriving at Cat Tales, Nalin had performed in a tiger show at Six Flags in California, where he developed a reputation for showing off his considerable strength. His powerful jaws were so formidable that he could bite through and puncture metal water buckets.<\/p>\n
The decision to euthanize Nalin was not made lightly. Grey acknowledged that losing animals is an emotional part of working at a wildlife facility, even when it is the most humane choice.<\/p>\n
“He definitely inspired many guests,” Grey said. “We miss him.”<\/p>\n
In keeping with scientific and conservation efforts, Nalin’s body will be transported to a laboratory at Washington State University for study. Grey expressed hope that the research will contribute to a deeper understanding of Bengal tigers and advance knowledge that could benefit the species in the future.<\/p>\n
COPYRIGHT 2026 BY KXLY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MEAD, Wash. \u2014 Staff at Cat Tales Wildlife Center are mourning the loss of Nalin, a white Bengal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":772483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[212268,329646,6101,329645,293625,329649,329644,329648,329650,79,173399,2002,44307,329647,201],"class_list":["post-772482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-bengal-tiger","tag-cat-tales-wildlife-center","tag-executive-director","tag-lisa-grey","tag-mead","tag-mead-facility","tag-nalin","tag-nalin-perera","tag-puncture-metal-water-buckets","tag-science","tag-sundarbans","tag-washington","tag-washington-state-university","tag-white-tiger","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=772482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/772483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}