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In a victory for animal conservation, a Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) recently gave birth to three cubs at the Tanganyika Wildlife Park in Goddard, Kansas. The new litter arrived into the world on June 11 and is made up of three furballs: one female and two males.
His mother, Sienna, is an orange tiger, while his father, Grayson, is a white Bengal tiger. All three cubs resemble their mother’s shade of orange. Since white is a recessive trait in Bengal tigers, this is not a surprise. The birth itself, however, was a bit surprising as it came without warning.
Three small roars | Baby tiger cubs
Pregnant tigresses don’t look all that different from their non-pregnant peers, especially first-time mothers. What’s more, the Tanganyika Wildlife Park team had yet to see a confirmed breeding between Sienna and Grayson. As such, they only became aware when a caregiver saw breast development in Sienna during a training session.
“We saw some mammary development and realized we were most likely going to have babies,” carnivore supervisor Phoebe Andrews said in a statement.
The puppies, as yet unnamed, are the mother and father’s first litter. Sienna’s maternal instincts came to light immediately, and she prepared her babies and allowed them to breastfeed shortly after birth. However, animal handlers raise the cubs by hand.
“Hand-rearing is a deliberate choice,” the press release reads. “Newborn cats are fragile and the park’s first priority is to give each kitten the best possible chance of survival. Hand-raising kittens allows caregivers to tailor nutrition to their needs, provide immediate medical care, closely monitor their health and support healthy development during the most vulnerable stage of life.”
The trio spent their first weeks with their mother and were then moved to daycare for full-time care. Keepers will weigh them, document their growth, and feed them several times a day. Currently, the brothers’ stripes are too similar to distinguish them visually. Instead, animal keepers use small fur ornaments as short-term identifiers.
Unfortunately, counterparts of the Bengal tiger family in the wild are threatened by deforestation, habitat loss, poaching, and conflicts with humans. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species classifies the species as Endangered.
“They are still endangered in the wild. It is important to maintain a population under professional care so that we can conserve that genetic diversity,” said Samantha Russak, Curator of Research and Welfare and Registrar of Tanganyika Wildlife Park.
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