New Delhi, Dec 21 (EFE).- The New Delhi Zoo on Thursday presented two Bengal tiger cubs to the public, seven months after they were born in the zoo.
The cubs are the first Bengal tigers to be born at the zoo in 18 years.
Zoo officials said that the twin cubs were in good health.
On their first day of display, which attracted a crowd mainly schoolchildren and some adults, the cubs explored their surroundings under the watchful eyes of their six-and-a-half-year-old mother, Siddhi.
In May, Siddhi gave birth to five cubs, three of which were stillborn.
“These cubs are born after a long gap in the zoo,” Manoj Kumar, an official at the National Zoological Park of the Indian capital told EFE.
In April, the zoo introduced two white tiger cubs, representing a rare variant of the endangered feline species.
India is home to over 3,000 tigers of various subspecies, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said earlier this month on the 50th anniversary of the ‘Project Tiger,’ a program promoting the conservation of the species in the country.
Apart from the wild tigers, which are scattered in reserves across the country, the Central Zoo Authority of India has launched a captive tiger conservation program to maintain a healthy and genetically diverse population.
India is also actively engaged in other rare species conservation initiatives, such as the Cheetah Project, launched less than a year ago to reintroduce the big cats which became extinct over seven decades ago in the country. EFE
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