Endangered Sumatran tiger triplets have been born at London zoo to the mother whose cub drowned in the multimillion pound tiger enclosure last year.

 

The triplets were born to five-year-old Sumatran tigress Melati on Monday morning, with keepers monitoring the birth using remote camera technology. It is not yet known what gender the cubs are.

 

Melati and her cubs, pictured, remain inside the den away from the public, with the mother occasionally venturing out for food. The father, six-year-old Jae Jae, remains in the main tiger enclosure, away from the cubs.

 

Zookeeper Teague Stubbington said: "While we still don't know whether they're boys or girls, we're starting to see their personalities develop. We've nicknamed one Trouble, as it's much bolder than the others – it was the first to start exploring its den and we've spotted it waking up its siblings when they fall asleep."

 

With Sumatran tiger numbers estimated to be as low as 300 individuals in the wild, the zoo says the birth of the cubs represents a huge achievement, "not just for ZSL London zoo but for the global breeding programme of this critically endangered species".

 

London zoo's £3.6m Tiger Territory opened in March 2013 and was designed to encourage breeding of the endangered subspecies of tiger.

 

The Sumatran tiger, whose habitat is the forests and jungles of Sumatra, Indonesia, is threatened by poaching, habitat loss and human conflict.

 

In the 1970s, there were estimated to be 1,000 Sumatran tigers in the wild, but current figures indicate that there are just 300. Should their numbers continue to decline at this rate, conservationists warn that Sumatran tigers will face the very real threat of extinction within the next decade.

 

 

)