Louisville Zoo debuts its newest addition: A Sumatran tiger cub
By Addie Meiners
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LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (WLKY) — The Louisville Zoo debuted to the public Tuesday its newest addition: a Sumatran tiger cub.
The cub was born in July and has been training and growing with zoo staff and his mom, Jenga, for the past 10 weeks.
“He just got to be big enough that he could kind of navigate (the exhibit) and that his mom was comfortable having him out there,” said Jill Katka, the assistant mammal curator at the Louisville Zoo. “So he’s still nursing and he will be for a couple of weeks. But we’ve been working to have him out, and the keepers have been monitoring and making sure that everything is going well.”
The cub was playful Tuesday, wrestling with his mom and running up to the window where young children were watching him.
“He actually seems to enjoy interacting with some of the kids, and he’s coming right up to the glass, and sometimes he even does a cute little pounce,” said Katka.
The tiger cub is one of four babies that the zoo currently has. Over the past six months, the zoo has added a giraffe calf, an addax calf and a gorilla.
“We are having a baby boom here at the zoo, and it’s incredible,” said Katka. “The babies that we have here are all planned, but sometimes you don’t know if it’s actually going to succeed. Sometimes it’s the timing, and all the timing is up to the animals.”
The Sumatran tiger is a critically endangered species. The two tigers at the zoo are two of fewer than 600 left in the world.
Because of that, the zoo wants to name the tiger cub something that raises awareness for the species.
The three options are Satu, Saya Sambal or Kaji.
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