Bhubaneswar: Two melanistic cubs were born inside the tiger enclosure of the Nandankanan Zoological Park here bringing cheers to the wildlife lovers and Zoo officials.
Deputy Director of the Zoo Jayant Das said, “Tigress Renuka gave birth to two cubs today, one of them at 3.40am and the other at 12 Noon in the enclosure number 33.
Both the cubs are melanistic (Black), he said adding that with the two new melanistic cubs, the strength of melanistic tiger in Nandankanan Zoo rose to four.
Das said, both the mother and cubs are kept in special enclosure and are being monitored through CCTV by the doctors.
The melanistic cubs were the result of mating with Zoo-bred tiger Samrat about 100 days back. This was the first liter of both tigress Renuka and tiger Samrat.
Earlier, two melanistic tigers were born in the Zoo in two separate liters due to the breeding between Sneha and Manish and one of them has already been released inside the Tiger Safari of the Zoo for the visitors.
He said incidentally, Samrat and Sneha are brother and sister and Renuka and Manish are also brother and sister of Nandankanan Zoo origin.
He said, when melanistic cubs were born due to the successful breeding between Sneha with Manish an attempt was made to go for mating between Renuka, sister of Manish with Samrat, brother of Sneha and it led to the birth of two more melanistic tiger cubs.
With the newborns, the number of captive tigers at Nandankan Zoo rose to 28 of which 15 are normal, 9 white and four melanistic.
PNN
