Cheyenne Mountain Zoo Welcomes New Rare Baby Tiger

Updated: Aug 13, 2008 06:42 PM EDT

CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN ZOO – Patrons to the zoo will soon have a new adorable, yet extremely rare, baby tiger cub to fawn over. Baby Zoya was born June 19th to mother Helga and father George at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. Unfortunately, Helga did not exhibit many “motherly” qualities, and zoo keepers had to remove Zoya from her and hand raise her.

Zoya is no ordinary tiger. She is a rare and endangered Amur tiger. The Cheyenne Mountain Zoo currently has four Amur tigers in its collection. With a planned transfer to another institution for one of its adult tigers, there will soon be room for Zoya in the Zoo’s Asian Highlands’ tiger complex.

The world’s largest cat, the Amur (formerly known as Siberian) tiger is one of five subspecies of tigers still in existence today. Currently there are only approximately 400 Amur tigers living in the wild.

With the tiger cub in good health and becoming quite active, Zoya will now be available for public viewing in a special outdoor exhibit at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo’s Monkey Pavilion. The young Amur tiger will be in her outdoor exhibit space twice daily, from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon and 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., weather permitting. The Zoo suggests checking the Zoo’s website at the zoo’s Web site for any updates and changes to this schedule.

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