Newborn Rare Ligers Crossbreed Unveiled (video)

A female Bengal tigress gave birth to cubs known as ligers. The dad is a male African lion named Simba. The three liger cubs were born in Taiwan on Sunday at the World Snake King Education Farm in Tainan County in the south. Two of the cubs survived and are being hand reared by zoo staff after their mom rejected them.

According to the Taipei-based Apple Daily, there are only around 10 surviving ligers in the world, with adult ligers capable of growing much larger than average lions.

Animal rights groups have criticized the zoo’s owner Huang Kuo-nan for the illegal crossbreeding, and he faces a fine for breeding wildlife without prior approval.

He insists it was unintentional. “The pregnancy of the tigress caught me totally unprepared,” Huang said. “The lion and the tigress have been kept in the same cage since they were cubs more than six years ago, and nothing happened.”

Read more: Pets, Videos, Wildlife, liger, lion, taiwan zoo, tiger

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LMj S.

5:00PM PDT on Oct 14, 2012

Interesting

October 14
send a green star

4:59PM PDT on Oct 14, 2012

4:58PM PDT on Oct 14, 2012

Nimue P.

10:36PM PDT on May 10, 2012

Male lion,/female tiger mating should not be encouraged. I hope they survive.

May 10
send a green star

Sandi C.

8:16AM PDT on May 10, 2012

cute anyway, hope they make it!

aj E.

4:25PM PDT on Apr 17, 2012

hmmm

April 17
send a green star

Elizabeth M.

1:26PM PDT on May 11, 2011

These two very different lions, African and Bengalese should not have been in the same cage.
I do not like the crossbreeding. If it were to happen in the wild, that is different. Well the little ligers are sure cute as in photo (video not available - private?). Thanks for sharing Chris.