Staff at Terra Natura Benidorm will bottle feed a cub after it was rejected by it´s mother.

This morning the young 13 day old cub was presented to the public.

 

Kali, an Asian Tiger (Panthera tigris) from the Terra Natura Benidorm, has had a tough start in life after being rejected by her mother Ela after birth.  To ensure that little Kali, who is only 13 days old survives, experts at the park have started feeding Kali manually.

Kali´s mother Ela carried the cub to full term after a three and a half month gestation period.  When she was born she suffered from hypothermia but survived the first two weeks of life.

Kali birth is the second time that this nature park has managed to reproduce this species in captivity, the first time being in 2007. 

The Head Keeper from the complex demonstrated this morning how they feed little Kali.  She is bottle fed with milk six times a day, every four hours with the equivalent of 20% of her body weight and to supplement her diet calcium and vitamins are also added.  The feline’s diet will change when she is two months old when they will introduce small pieces of meat along with her milk.  The amount of milk will be reduced as she continues to grow and the amount of meat increased until she is eating only meat.

Kali is monitored constantly to prevent any complications or illness and to measure her development.  Exhaustive controls are taken to ensure that she has the exact quantities of milk required and that her body functions as it would in the wild.  Any adjustments are made according to the results.

Kali is staying at the Clinic in Terra Natura Benidorm, to avoid contact with the other animals at the park and to keep human contact to a minimum so as not to transmit viruses.

When Kali is a month old she will be vacinated and then when she is about six months old,  she will be introduced to the streak of Asian Tigers at the park.

This species of tiger is actually in grave danger of extinction and is protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES).

This animal is considered the second largest land predator after the polar bear and grizzly bear. Their hunting strategy is to surprise their victims as they are very agile jumpers but not good runners.

An adult tiger can consume up to 40 kilos of meat at one sitting.  The Bengali tiger differs from the Siberian tiger because it has short hair allowing it to adapt to the heat and humidity of the Asian Jungle where they live.  The Siberian tiger is smaller but can reach 250 kilos in weight.