For all the latest Bengal Classifieds News and Big Cat News from around the world

Two rare white lion cubs were born in Belgrade Zoo earlier this month. They are the first to be born there.  White lions are a rare mutation of a species unique to South Africa. They are almost extinct in the wild due to hunting - Fewer than 30 are thought to exist in the wild. They are now bred in zoos around the world.
The cubs’ mother was  a white lioness, Masa, while their father is a regular-color lion.  White lions are not a separate species nor are they albino.

2 rare amur leopards have been shown off by keepers at a wildlife park in Kent.

Brother and sister Amur leopard cubs, Argun and Anuy, are now eight weeks old and playing without “a care in the world”, their keeper said.

They were born in October at the Wildlife Heritage Foundation in Smarden, Kent, which supports rare and endangered big cats.

It is thought no more than 40 Amurs survive in the wild, the charity said. The leopards originate from Russia.

Mark Edgerley, who runs the centre, said the pair were beginning to become more confident and could often be seen playing together in their enclosure while their mother, three-year-old Xizi, looked on.

He said their father, Artur, six, was their biggest danger because of his lack of paternal instinct.

Adding that the cubs were like “little kittens”, he said: “They chase straw and if they see a bit of sunlight falling on the ground they will go after that.

“They look as if they had not got a care in the world.”

He said the cubs were still feeding from their mother but were starting to play with meat and bone and would eventually eat up to 18kg (40lb) of meat each week, including horse, calf and rabbit.

Amur leopards are under threat of extinction because of the burning of forests to make way for agricultural land in the Russian Far East, Mr Edgerley added.

He said there were about 140 Amur leopards living in a European breeding programme, but Argun and Anuy would never be released into the wild.

“Animals that are bred in captivity cannot just be let loose to fend for themselves. It won’t be first-generation zoo animals that are released but second-generation ones,” he said.

A wild tiger cub attacked by villagers has died in a central Indian zoo two days after vets tried to save it with a rare blood transfusion, officials say.

The cub, Juhi, initially showed signs of improvement but suddenly went into convulsions and died, officials said.

Another cub found at the same time near the city of Nagpur in the state of Maharashtra is getting better and responding to treatment.

Loss of habitat has brought tigers into conflict with humans in India.

The blood transfusion is believed to be the first carried out on a tiger in India and was done after its haemoglobin dropped to “dangerously low” levels.

The eight-month-old cub was named Juhi after a fragrant white flower native to India.

‘Several complications’

“We tried a lot but I guess it was not enough. We could not save the cub. It had not eaten for days and was severely dehydrated. It was suffering from haemorrhagic gastroenteritis,” Dr Sunil Bavaskar, one of the vets commented.

He said that a team of vets was now working to ensure that Juhi’s sister, called Jai, or Victory, survives.

“We will make sure that she recovers but I doubt if she will be able to survive in the wild. The fact that they strayed near human civilisation shows they cannot hunt. Also we do not know when they lost their mother.”

The chief wildlife officer in Nagpur, stated that the two cubs were found last week near Chandrapur, a forest area.

“One of them was given a blood transfusion. There were several complications, including external infections and damage to intestines,” he said.

A team of vets worked for over two days to save the cub – which was given blood from a tiger held in captivity near Mumbai (Bombay).

Mr Majumdar said that the death of the cub was a “sad moment”.

“We have lost the battle,” he told the Associated Press news agency. “She got convulsions this morning [Tuesday] and we tried our best to save her.

“But she stopped breathing and that’s how the end came.”

Juhi and Jai were found near the Tadoba tiger reserve as they were being chased by villagers who wanted to kill them because they feared the animals would attack children and cattle.

Experts say that there are only about 1,500 tigers in the wild in India – down from about 3,600 six years ago and an estimated 100,000 a century ago.

Human encroachment on their habitats, poaching and busy roads and railways have all been blamed for their demise.

It was reported this week that a Singapore Zoo cleaner has died after being attacked by 3 tigers.

The cleaner – Nordin Bin Montong was mauled by the white Bengal tigers (Read about the history of the bengal cat here)  after crossing a moat surrounding their enclosure. Eye witnesses reported that he was acting erratically.

The alarm was raised by zookeepers after they heard horrified visitors screaming.

They managed to distract the tigers and pull Mr Nordin away but he died of his injuries on the way to hospital. Police are investigating the incident.

Reports say that witnesses saw the cleaner climb into the enclosure and wade through the 33 foot wide moat. He then approached the tigers with a broomstick and a bucket. The largest tiger then lunged at Mr Nordin, who fell immediately and recoiled into a foetal position.

“Police are still investigating. We are not able to say exactly what happened,” said the assistant director of zoology, Biswajit Guha.

“But he was throwing things around and passing comments like ‘goodbye, you won’t see me again’,” said Mr Guha.

An Australian couple visiting the zoo told the Straits Times they had seen Mr Nordin shouting and throwing things as he walked past a crocodile earlier in the day.

Singapore Zoo has closed the white tiger exhibit as a precautionary measure.

The World Wide Fund for Nature reported this week that Russian PM – Vladamir Putin has recently signed a decree that will create a long campaigned for, protected area that wil be home for up to half of all remaining Far Eastern leopards.

Far-Eastern leopards are the only leopard species in the world which are capable of surviving the prolonged cold periods and harsh Russian winters. The leopards now number only about 30 in the wild, and are on the brink of extinction.

They face continual threats from unregulated tourism, forest fires and habitat loss from logging. They also face additional threats from poaching and from the problems associated with inbreeding due to their small population numbers.

The new reserve will join two small protected areas into one, called Leopardovy Zakaznik (Leopard nature sanctuary), and will be managed by the Ministry of Nature Resources of Russia. According to the decree, the ministry will also manage neighbouring Kedrovaya Pad nature reserve.

Before the decree, all three protected areas had been managed by different state agencies whose differing mandates meant that a unified Leopard conservation strategy was not in place. The transfer of jurisdiction to a single authoritiy will allow for a single strategy that places the restoration of the leopard population at the heart of its operations in the area.

WWF proposed this change as early as 1999, in its Strategy for conservation of the Far Eastern leopard in Russia. “We are happy that finally, after all these years, the government has addressed this issue”, says WWF-Russia CEO Igor Chestin. “We hope that the Ministry will immediately start improving management of the protected area to ensure effective leopard conservation. WWF is ready to provide help and advice to the new sanctuary”.

To ensure Far-Eastern leopard protection, WWF created anti-poaching groups in the region. WWF also cooperates with Chinese conservation agencies to create a trans-border system of protected areas that sought to save the leopards habitat from industrial pollution. Education programs to inform locals of the threats facing this extremely rare cat species were set up, while customs agents were trained to track poachers who illegally sell leopard parts to China.

In 2007, WWF built a visit centre for the future protected area, which now will finally be given to the Leopardovy zakaznik, and will hope to create revenue that can go towards making the sanctuary commercially viable.

United Kingdom: Norfolk:
Malyshka, a tiger at Banham Zoo in Norfolk, England, has recently given birth to 2 cubs (believed to be the first to be born in captivity in the UK this year). The two Amur (Siberian)tiger cubs were born at Banham in mid October and are currently being observed using infra-red closed circuit television cameras. The zoo said that, Malyshka, the mother, is amongst the moist important females in the European breeding programme. Malyshka was previously at a Russian zoo and came to Banham zoo as a 2 year old in 2006. She has few relatives within the breeding programme (Breeding of tigers in captivity is closely monitored to ensure that the maximum amount of genetic diversity is preserved). It is believed that there are around 450 – 500 Amur tigers left in the wild

A picture of an elusive snow leopard on a night-time prowl has won the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2008 award. The image was taken by Steve Winter, a photographer for National Geographic magazine, during a 13-month quest to capture a perfect image of the endangered species in its unforgiving habitat high in the mountains of central Asia – the image was captured at an altitude of more than 13,000ft in India’s Ladak’s Hemis High Altitude National Park.

Speaking about his winning snap, Mr Winter said: “I was thrilled to have finally captured the shot I had dreamed of – a wild snow leopard in its true element.” “I try to do stories that have never been done before,“.

“They do involve an incredible amount of work with scientists and local people. We were lucky in this instance that we got incredible pictures.

“It was collaboration between myself, the team and the snow leopard,” he joked.

The project involved 14 remote cameras in roughly 45 locations. It was a case of trial and error – one camera only delivered a picture of half of a leopard in five-and-a-half months.

Working in such harsh conditions, where temperatures plummeted to -40C (-40F), he asked the manufacturers for their advice on the performance of the cameras in extreme temperatures.

“They told me: ‘We don’t know, tell us when you get back’,” he recalled.

Commenting on the use of trigger cameras rather than being sat behind the lens, Mr Winter said: “They are something that needs to be used to get intimate portraits of elusive animals.

“I used to hate these cameras because they just gave you a record of an animal.

“Images are all about composition and light. If I cannot control that as if I would as I put the camera up to my face, then essentially I have failed.

“So I asked myself that if I did not like these cameras, how can I like them more.

“It turns out that snow leopards are the perfect species on which to use these cameras. They always come to specific locations to mark their territory.

“So I viewed the locations as movie sets. I put the cameras there, I put the lights there.

“I knew the animal would come; it was just waiting for the actor to walk on stage and break the beam.”

More than eight thousand conservationists and policy makers are currently in in Barcelona, Spain, for the IUCN World Conservation Congress.

Held once every four years, the gathering is viewed as a landmark event where future conservation strategies are developed.

Amongst the motions being debated on Saturday, was one about the Iberian lynx, of which there are only probably around 1500-200 remaining in the wild.

The problem is the one that threatens more species than any other; habitat loss, as wild animals give ground to man.

In this case, the plaintiffs are simply asking Spain and Portugal to give greater priority to the lynx’s preservation – which presumably means restricting the intensification of agriculture, urban development and road building.

Two Amur tigers have been transported from Edinburgh Zoo to a new enclosure at the Highland Wildlife Park, near Kingussie.

The pair named Yuri and Sasha have previously reared six cubs.

Edinburgh Zoo said the wild population was in its healthiest state since before World War II, but remained at serious threat of extinction.

It has previously been proposed moving Edinburgh’s polar bear, Mercedes, to the Highland park.

Edinburgh Zoo have replaced the Amurs with a young pair of Sumatran tigers.

The new arrivals – named Tibor and Chandra – are just over a year old and arrived from Heidelberg Zoo in Germany.

Sumatran tigers are also a critically endangered species.

Doug Richardson, animal collection manager at Highland Wildlife Park, said staff were excited to have the Amurs in their care.

He said: “The arrival of the tigers is the latest step in the evolution of the Highland Wildlife Park and one that I am sure will help to raise our profile both within and outside of the Highlands community.”

Scott Armstrong, VisitScotland’s regional director, said the move would increase visitor numbers at the park.

He added: “Due to the current economic climate, it’s a great time to explore what’s on our doorsteps and these tigers will mean a unique experience for both locals and those venturing from further a field.”