Siberian tiger sextuplet dies at zoo in Zhejiang

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, March 09, 2004

Siberian tiger sextuplet dies at zoo in Zhejiang

One of the six baby Siberian tigers that were born ten days ago at a zoo in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, has died, zoo officials announced Tuesday.

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One of the six baby Siberian tigers that were born ten days ago at a zoo in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, has died, zoo officials announced Tuesday.

The cub, the youngest of the six, had been well cared for by the mother, but was too weak to survive and died Sunday midnight, said a keeper at the Hangzhou Wild Animal Park.

The mother gave birth to the six cubs on Feb. 29, after a four-hour delivery. It was the third birth by the four-year-old tiger who had delivered seven cubs before, of which six survived.

Zookeepers had to recruit two lactating dogs, whose milk is nutritionally similar to the tiger, to help feed the baby tigers as the parent tiger has only four nipples.

"The baby tiger was very weak from the time it was born, and that's why we decided to let the parent tiger to look after it, but it still died," said the keeper, who added that the five others were in good condition and were expected to fend for themselves in one month.

The Siberian tiger is one of the world's rarest mammals. Fewer than 400 are believed to survive in the wild, about 20 in China and the rest in Russia.

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