Posted August 8, 2019 in New Arrivals
Born on the 14th June the tiger cubs continue to grow healthy and strong!
All three of cubs are now really showing their individual characters, spending most of their time outside with mum playing and exploring as a result of first-time mum, Taiga’s brilliant parenting!
Here are the cubs exploring the larger of their two outdoor
enclosures for the first time at nearly 5 months old!
We asked visitors to help decide on the cub’s names with the animals care team selecting their favourite names and visitors at the zoo voted for their favourite by offering donation towards the name of the name of choice. The three names that raised the most donations were the ones that were chosen!
Our young female has been given the name of Tatana, meaning ‘Father’s daughter’, whilst the smaller of the two boys has taken the name of Pasha, meaning ‘small and humble’. The larger of the two was named Mischa which means ‘lord like’ and all three names originate from Russia as Amur tigers are from the Russian far-east region.
Thank you to all those who voted, over £1,200.00 was raised for our charity Action for the Wild to help support the Amur tiger conservation project, Wildlife Vets International (WVI). For more information about WVI please click here.
As well as being named the cubs also took their first steps outside on Saturday 27th July! Mischa was the cub who ventured out first closely followed by mum Taiga keeping a close eye on him. Pasha and Tatana waited until the afternoon to discover the outdoors but Tatana let her brothers lead the way and continued behind cautiously but inquisitively. Tatana is the shy one of the three and is much more reserved but the two boys are very playful and adventurous once outside. Mischa follows mum Taiga everywhere and therefore is the one who has explored their outdoor area the most with his siblings staying closer to their indoor den.
After their first day of exploring the animal care team said the cubs spent the majority of the next day inside sleeping – exhausted from their big day out! Although to begin with they only explored a small part of their outdoor area, they have since gained more confidence and now spend most of their time outside exploring.
The cubs have access to the smaller of the two outdoor areas. Whilst they are still small and finding their feet the water level will be kept low in the pool but the keepers will continue to put out various enrichment for them to enjoy and to keep them cool throughout the summer.
These 3 tiger cubs are extremely important as Amur tigers are currently listed as endangered on the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List do these new arrivals are amazing news for their species population.
Amur tigers come from the Amur
Region along the eastern border between China and Russia with their habitat
containing some of the coldest areas in the world. They are also known as
Siberian Tigers and are the largest and palest of all tiger subspecies.
