Early in the morning on November 12, Suhana the Malayan Tiger gave birth to four healthy cubs at the Little Rock Zoo.  The zoo staff monitors the family with remote cameras, where they captured this video of a sneezing cub.

Photo Credit:  Little Rock Zoo

For now, the cubs are with Suhana in their den, where they will remain for several more weeks, and all signs indicate that the cubs are progressing exactly as they should.  Once the cubs are weaned at three to five months, they will move into the zoo’s newly-renovated outdoor Tiger habitat.

The breeding of Suhana, age five, and her mate, nine-year-old Liku, was recommended by the Species Survival Plan of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which seeks to maintain a genetically-diverse zoo population of Malayan Tigers. 

Malayan Tigers are one of six existing Tiger subspecies.  Three subspecies – Javan, Caspian, and Bali – have gone extinct within the last 80 years.  In the wild, fewer than 500 Malayan Tigers remain in the forests of the Malay Peninsula and the southernmost tip of Thailand. The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists all Tigers as Endangered.