Tigress Uthra gives birth to four cubs at Vandalur zoo

P Oppili| TNN | Updated: Nov 6, 2017, 05:46 IST


CHENNAI: Four tiger cubs are the latest addition to Vandalur zoo. TigressUthra delivered the cubs on Sunday morning bringing the total number of tigers at the zoo to 30.

A senior wildlife official said an animal keeper went to the enclosure in the morning and on noticing the cubs, informed authorities. The tiger Vijay is the father of the cubs, he said.

Vijay and Uthra mated in the month of July. The pregnancy was confirmed by zoo veterinarians in the last week of July. The gestation period for a tigress is 110 days, said a veterinarian.

The mother and cubs have been kept away from the gaze of visitors. Closed circuit television with monitors will observe the behaviour of Uthra and her cubs. The zoo has observed this system for the last seven years whenever the tigers delivered cubs. This will help the mother provide the required care to the cubs, said a zoo biologist.

Uthra was rescued from the forests of Sathyamangalam when she was abandoned by her mother a few years ago. She came to the zoo when she was just a couple of months old. She is now seven years old, said zoo officials.

The sex of the newborn cubs is yet to be established. It will take at least a week. It is difficult to say if all the four cubs will survive, zoo officials said.

Their survival depends on the care provided by the mother. New mothers may not know how to feed their cubs leading to the cubs dying of starvation, the veterinarian said.

In 2015, the zoo got a new breed of tiger cubs. These cubs were the offspring of a Bengal tiger and a white tigress. This new breed of tigers was called heterozygous and they have the strong qualities of both the Bengal and white tigers, said a wildlife officer. After several years, the zoo has tiger cubs delivered by a tigress rescued from the wild.