This is the moment two adorable Amur tiger cubs born to wild-rescued parents at the Moscow Zoo cautiously step out of their shelter and trail behind their mother in an outdoor enclosure for the first time.
The footage was released from the Centre for the Reproduction of Rare Animal Species in the city of Moscow, in Russia, on 8th December.
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It shows the cute newborn cubs taking their first tentative steps outside under the watchful eye of their mother.
The newborns, a male and a female, were born at the end of August to tigress Shiva and tiger Amur-Orion, both of whom previously lived in the wild.
Staff said the mother hid the cubs for weeks, and workers entered the enclosure as rarely as possible to avoid disturbing them.
Their first weighing took place about a month after birth, when each cub weighed 7 kilogrammes (15 lbs).
A planned vaccination was carried out in mid-November, and the cubs were weighed again, reaching 12 kilogrammes (26 lbs).
Zoo officials said the next veterinary check will take place when the cubs are six months old.
Moscow Zoo director Svetlana Akulova said staff check the cubs’ health, weight and nourishment several times during their development, adding that the procedure is done swiftly while the mother is fed in an adjoining enclosure to minimise stress.
The centre said the data collected helps monitor the cubs’ growth and contributes to research on the species’ development.
According to the zoo, the first three months of life are spent feeding on their mother’s milk, but cubs begin trying small amounts of meat from the second month onward.
They currently live with their mother in a secluded, non-exhibition part of the centre and are already hunting quail on their own.
Shiva previously gave birth to four cubs in 2020, which later moved to zoos in the Russian Far East and Kazakhstan.
She arrived at the reproduction centre in 2018 after being taken from the wild for hunting near human settlements without fear of people.
Amur suffered a severe leg injury in the wild and, after treatment and rehabilitation, was judged unable to survive without human care.
Both now form part of a long-running conservation programme created in 2006 under the Eurasian Regional Association of Zoos and Aquariums and later joined by members of the Russian Union of Zoos and Aquariums.
The programme, led since 2021 by Moscow Zoo scientific department head Sergey Khlupin, aims to maintain a stable, breeding captive population of Amur tigers as a reserve for the threatened natural population.
Amur tigers, also known as Siberian tigers, are listed as Endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species.
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Story By: Joseph Golder, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Newsflash
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