Lima zoo to exhibit Peru's first white tiger cub

Lima, Aug 7 (IANS/EFE) The Huachipa Zoological Park in Lima plans to put Peru's first white tiger born in captivity on exhibit next week, said veterinarian Catalina Hermoza.

"It is going to have an exhibit in the first half of this month like the other felines, so people can see it," Hermoza told EFE.

The tigress, who was born June 25 and weighs more than five kg, is in the zoo's nursery and is being kept isolated from other animals.

Specialists are monitoring the cub's vital signs and supervising her feeding.

"We are giving ourselves the option of letting the animal finish consuming milk and start to eat meat so it can have an adult diet, and then it will go into the area for big cats so it can join its mother when it is at least eight months old ... although there will no longer be a mother-daughter relationship," the veterinarian said.

The cub, which is teething, is the daughter of Yunga and Clarita, the white Bengal tigers that arrived from Argentina five years ago and Chile a year ago, respectively.

The little tigress, which had a brother that died 24 hours after birth, does not yet have a name and visitors will be asked to put their choices in a suggestion box.

--IANS/EFE

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