The birth of four Royal Bengal tiger cubs in captivity at Pune’s Rajiv Gandhi Zoological Park in October 2018 was finally made public by the zoo authorities on Monday.
The news of the birth of the three male and one female cubs was kept under wraps to protect them from undue attention, Raj Kumar Jadhav, director of the Pune Municipal Corporation’s Rajiv Gandhi Zoological Park said.
“This is the first time that we had four cubs born here after we shifted to Katraj from Sarasbaug in 2004. The cubs are healthy and are growing well,” he added.
He pointed out that the newly-born cubs are extremely sensitive and do not like any disturbance. “We had kept them under observation. They were fed milk, eggs, beef and were de-wormed and vaccinated. They weigh 7-8 kg (approximately),” Jadhav said.
According to officials, the cubs were delivered by nine-year-old tigress Riddhi on October 23 last year. While she was brought from the Aurangabad Zoo in 2015, her mate, Bagiram was brought from Pench forest. The newly-born cubs were named Akash, Sarthak, Guru and Pournima on Monday.
In 2015, Riddhi was part of the second breeding programme and steps were being taken to pair her with tigers Tanaji or Bagiram.
Jadhav said that the cubs had a natural birth and are very attached to their mother. The fact that they have ‘wild genes’ (Bagiram is from the wild jungles) is advantageous for the zoo in terms of animal exchange. According to the zoo director, two of the cubs will be exchanged after a year under the animal exchange programme. (The weaning period in the wild is usually one-and-half years to two years, but in captivity can be under a year.)
{{/usCountry}}Jadhav said that the cubs had a natural birth and are very attached to their mother. The fact that they have ‘wild genes’ (Bagiram is from the wild jungles) is advantageous for the zoo in terms of animal exchange. According to the zoo director, two of the cubs will be exchanged after a year under the animal exchange programme. (The weaning period in the wild is usually one-and-half years to two years, but in captivity can be under a year.)
{{/usCountry}}“We want to continue breeding them in the future,” he said.
Previously, when the zoo was known as Peshwe Park near Sarasbaug, there were four cubs born in captivity in 2004 to tigress Razia and her mate, Sultan, but only three cubs survived. One of the three was shifted to another zoo.