1. The cubs were born around June 26, 2017
2. Silla is impregnated in approx March, 2017
3. As of August 3, 2017 the cubs are still being breastfed by their mother.
4. Cubs are not yet names as foster parents, who provides "milk and food" for a year, will name them.
5. Cubs "will be breastfed for two months".
6. After two months, they will be given "additional" milk that is to be imported from Austraila.
7. Zoo plans to breeds leopards.
Foster parents sought for Bengal baby tigers in Bandung
· The Jakarta Post 3 Aug 2017 Arya Dipa
Cute carnivores: Veterinarians hold two 39-day-old Bengal tiger cubs at the Bandung Zoo in West Java on Wednesday. The Bandung Zoo in West Java, which has drawn global outrage recently following a series of animal cruelty allegations, is now looking for foster parents for its two newborn Bengal tigers.
Bengal tigers are one of the world’s five tiger species facing extinction. The other four are the Siberian tiger, the Indochinese tiger, the Malayan tiger and the Sumatran tiger. “The birth process normally follows a 111-day pregnancy,” veterinarian Dedi Trisasongko, who heads of the zoo’s conservation division, said on Wednesday. The two 39-day-old baby tigers have different sexes.
The male one weighs 4.5 kilograms while the female one weighs 4.9 kg. Both are in a healthy condition and are still breastfed.
The zoo previously only had a 15-year-old male Bengal tiger, named Shah Rukh Khan, in its collection. Its mate, eight-yearold tiger Silla, was brought to the facility from Maharani Zoo Lamongan in East Java through a breeding loan program.
Bandung Zoo’s marketing communications officer Sulhan Syafi’i said the zoo had deliberately not yet given names to the two newborn tigers because it was waiting for foster parents for both of them.
He said the foster parent program was open to the public. A foster parent, he said, was given the exclusive right to name the respective animal and visit it. To become one, they only need to provide the animal with milk and food for a year.
“Programs like this are also conducted by other conservation institutions,” Sulhan said.
He said the two newborns would be breastfed for up to two months. Then they will receive additional milk. “The canned milk has to be imported from Australia,” said Sulhan, adding that a can of milk cost Rp 400,000 (US$30) and could last for a week.
Sulhan said the birth of the two Bengal tigers was the result of cooperation between the zoo and conservation institutions that were willing to lend their animals to the zoo for the breeding program.
The zoo will take care of the animals for three years. The babies born in the program will be taken care of by Bandung Zoo and the institutions involved in the loan, Sulhan said.
Dedi said the new baby tigers would only be able to be touched and medically evaluated after being exclusively breastfed for a month.
“If they are touched right after the birth the mother usually refuses to breastfeed them,” Dedi said.
He said with the success of the breeding loan program, the zoo was now looking forward to having a leopard born in the facility.
He said the zoo currently had a female and two male leopards in its collection.
“We have been working on the leopards, putting a pair of them in one place together,” he said.
Other collections at the zoo include a male and three female Sumatran tigers as well as two male and two female lions.
The zoo has come under fire recently after a video showing undernourished honey bears begging for food from tourists went viral earlier this year.
