Zirakpur, November 18: A LITTER of cubs on Sunday morning brought glad tidings to the Chhatbir zoo. White tigress Diya gave birth to four cubs. She had mated with Royal Bengal tiger Aman.
Zoo director M Sudhagar said, “It is the first litter of cubs by Diya. We had put her in isolation for the last one fortnight. The mother and cubs will be in isolation for next three months. We will not allow Aman, father of cubs, to mingle with his family for the next one month. Diya and her cubs will not be on public display for the next few months. They are already in a separate enclosure. Aman and Diya had paired four months back.”
Diya, too, was born at the Chhatbir zoo in 2013. Dolly, a tigress, had mothered a litter of three cubs. Out of three, two — Diya and Lakshy — are at the Chhatbir zoo. The third one was shifted to another zoo.
Sources said the zoo management had been waiting for the last three days having made all the arrangements for safe and successful delivering of the litter. By 5.30 am on Sunday, Diya gave birth to all the four cubs.
Sources said it had been a long journey of 102 days for the entire zoo team — from the day of pairing of Aman and Diya up to this day — taking care of medication, diet and other supplementation in pregnancy, monitoring, ensuring pollution-free environment, and playing cub videos on the monitor in Diya’s enclosure to improve her mothering ability.
A senior zoo official said that although the cubs are healthy and active, the zoo team is making all the necessary arrangements for them to survive and cross this winter successfully.
Diya and her cubs will be kept in strict isolation to ensure infection-free environment for another three months.
After a gap of six years, the employees and workers of Chhatbir Zoo celebrated the successful breeding in tigers. The chief wildlife warden and other higher authorities of the department congratulated the zoo team on their efforts.
