Taronga’s precious male Sumatran Tiger cubs have cracked the 20 kilogram mark. 

The female, Kartika is just trailing her brothers at a robust 18 kilograms. Sakti, whose name mean ‘invincible’, certainly lived up to his name, being the first of the tiger cubs to work out how to leap onto their mother, Jumilah’s bed board. 

His siblings weren’t quite as adventurous, so for a while he had sole suckling privileges, helping him to stack on the kilos.With the cubs now pretty much fully weaned and enjoying an appetising diet including chicken and beef, it didn’t take the other two long to catch up to Sakti.

Our keepers are delighted with the progress of the cubs and with their extra weight comes lots of rough and tumble, energetic play sessions.Just like kids, the males, Sakti and Kembali, can sometimes play too rough, ignoring each other’s protests when things go a little too far, only to shake it off and start all over again. The tiger keepers and the whole Taronga Zoo family are still celebrating the arrival of these precious big cats. 

These births represent nearly  one percent of the Sumatran Tiger population in the wild and the more Sumatran Tigers that exist in this world puts the threat of extinction just a little bit further away.Watching the cubs leap and play-fight with each other, it’s devastating to think that there is a very real risk that Sumatran Tigers could become extinct. We are very lucky to have a successful breeding program here at the Zoo that is part of a world-wide safety net against the loss of Sumatran Tigers in the wild.