Longleat Amur tiger cubs get first round of vaccines
The four girls will soon be ready to explore their environment
Longleat Safari Park's group of Amur tiger cubs have been given their first vaccinations - meaning the move a step closer to meeting the public.
The quartet, who were born earlier this year, have one more set of jabs in a few weeks before they can begin exploring the grounds, which is expected to be towards the end of the school summer holidays.
The vaccines were coordinated by lead carnivore keepers Caleb Hall and Eloise Kilbane, who both had to don gauntlets and gloves for protection despite the cubs being so young.
“Similar to our domestic cats at home, our tigers need vaccinating, and they had a thorough health check,” said Caleb.
The cubs will have a second vaccination in another three weeks, and they should then be ready to venture outside.
“They already love running round and exploring,” said Eloise. “Mum Yana was really relaxed throughout the experience; although we had physically separated her, she could still see them, and she was quite chilled – probably because she has had experience of this before,” she added.
The youngsters won't be in the drive through Safari straight away as the keepers will need to ensure they are familiar with the outdoors so will be in a smaller paddock to begin with.
They'll also need to have the benefit of the vaccines in their system.
“They are really strong already which shows how well mum has been looking after them; three were calm while one was quite feisty,” said Caleb.
“One of them started climbing so they are going to have great fun when they see the trees in the paddock,” he added.
Yana and dad Red had two cubs – Yuki and Rusty – in 2019. Rusty moved to Blackpool Zoo last year as part of the breeding programme.
Longleat now has the biggest collection of Amur tigers in the UK.
The species is currently listed as endangered and the Longleat cubs equate to more than 25 per cent of births across Europe in the previous two years.
It is estimated that there are only 450 Amur tigers remaining in the wild.