Experience with Wild Cats

[TheLioness]

I live close to the pittsburgh zoo and enjoy their big cats, their very old male lion died a few years back, they now have tw young males there. They also have amur tigers and were successful in breeding them. I cannot wait to go see them all, I was able to see the first litter on live video at the zoo, bddle feeding.~~On August 8, 2006, the Zoo's female Amur tiger, Toma, gave birth to a litter of three cubs. This is also a major accomplishment because Amurs are endangered, and every successful litter counts a great deal. Although one of the cubs died of a heart defect in September (a female named Nadya), the other two are healthy and doing well. The surviving cubs are a male named Petya and a female named Mara.Another Amur tiger cub was born to Toma on May 11, 2008. The male cub, Grom (name meaning Thunder for he was born during a thunderstorm), had been taken from his mother because Toma was not being very attentive to him. Handlers later determined that it is most likely because Toma is not producing enough milk, if any at all. On September 12, 2008, the baby cub was named after Billy Ray Cyrus, the country music and television star. Zoo representatives said the donors who paid to name the cub “Billy Ray” wanted to honor a late family member who was a big Cyrus fan.Billy Ray will likely grow up to be about 11 feet long and weigh 450 pounds, according to the Zoo.In 2010, three cubs were again born to Toma, and to Taiga their father. All three are doing very well at the zoo. Toma is caring for all three. Reply