Then onwards in 1824, 3 liger cubs were born at a Zoo in South Africa. This was believed to be the first birth of the liger cubs within some zoo. So if you are looking at the history of the captive ligers within Zoos, then Bloemfontein Zoo in South Africa was the first zoo to breed and display ligers during 1824. read more
They have been occasionally bred in captivity for a long time. That said in the wild the odds of them appearing were at one point much higher than you would expect. The Asiatic lion and Bengal tiger had overlapping ranges in the past. read more
According to Wild Cats of the World (1975) by C. A. W. Guggisberg, ligers and tigons were long thought to be sterile; however, in 1943, a fifteen-year-old hybrid between a lion and an 'Island' tiger was successfully mated with a lion at the Munich Hellabrunn Zoo. read more