Malayan Tiger Cubs at the Bronx Zoo

Click to see the cubs on Today.com: http://www.today.com/video/so-cute-meet-the-new-tiger-cubs-at-the-bronx-zoo-657967683653

The importance of the birth of two Malayan tiger cubs at the Bronx Zoo was featured on a segment on the Today Show on Sunday, 4 April.

There are fewer than 70 Malayan tigers in Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) zoos and about 40 in other zoos around the world.

And there are only about 250 of these critically endangered tigers left in the wild.

The cubs will debut to the public at the Bronx Zoo later this summer. We will keep you posted.

The cubs are being hand raised until they are fully weaned.

Why would some animals need to be hand raised?

Tigers born at the Bronx Zoo are generally raised by their mothers. Sometimes, in certain cases, they need help. 

How do you hand raise a tiger cub?

Initially, the cubs require 24 hour care and need to be fed a milk formula every three hours. Food intake is carefully recorded, and the cubs are weighed daily to ensure they are gaining an appropriate amount of weight. 

When they are about 40 days the number of formula feeds are reduced and we slowing introduce them to sold foods.  At about two months, we begin to increase the amount of solid food while slowly reducing the volume of milk.  By three to four months, they will be weaned and can begin the process of being introduced to sights, sounds and smells of adult tigers. 

Malayan Tigers in AZA Zoos:

At the end of 2015 there were 64 Malayan tigers (41 males; 23 females) in 27 North American institutions. 

General Facts about Tigers:

The Malayan tiger (Panthera tigris jacksoni) inhabits the southern and central parts of the Malay Peninsula.  It has been classified as Critically Endangered by IUCN; this population probably has fewer than 250 mature breeding individuals.

The Malayan tiger is the national animal of Malaysia. WCS has a program in Malaysia that works to ensure the conservation of these tigers in the wild.

Throughout the the range of the tiger, WCS has developed a set of powerful strategies that has demonstrably increased tiger populations.

Across their range, tigers face unrelenting pressures from poaching, retaliatory killings, habitat loss and loss of prey. They are forced to compete for space with a dense and growing human populations.

To learn more about WCS’s work on tigers, click here: http://www.wcs.org/our-work/species/tigers

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