Rare Amur tiger cubs born at Highland Wildlife Park

Dominika and her new cubs

A litter of rare Amur tiger cubs have been born at the Highland Wildlife Park near Aviemore.

The three cubs were born last Tuesday and staff said they were doing well so far but they remained cautious at this early stage.

Adult female Dominika gave birth to a previous litter in 2013.

Dominika and her new cubs are in an area not on public view, but visitors to the park can still see the youngsters' father Botzman.

He will be gradually introduced to the cubs as they grow older.

Vickie Larkin, carnivore team leader at Highland Wildlife Park, said, "We are really excited about our new arrivals but the first few weeks of a cub's life are crucial, so we are keeping public viewing closed for now to give Dominika and the youngsters lots of peace and quiet."

The cubs will be weighed and sexed during their first health check in the next few weeks, and will be given names shortly after that.

Ms Larkin said: "Amur tigers grow quite quickly, increasing almost four times in size within the first month of their life, but they will remain dependent on their mum for at least 15 months.

"We hope visitors will start to see them out and about towards the end of July."

Dominika and her two cubs in 2013

The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, which runs the park, said there were only 500 Amur tigers remaining in the wild.

RZSS has supported tiger conservation in Nepal by developing methods to evaluate tiger diets within the its WildGenes laboratory based at Edinburgh Zoo.