Heilongjiang breeding center welcomes three Siberian tiger babies

Baby pandas usually get the lion's share of the attention, but did you know China had a serious Siberian tiger breeding program in place as well? A center located to the northwest of Harbin, in Heilongjiang, has been working on churning out tiger cubs since 1986.

Yesterday, the park's Hengdaohezi Felidae Breeding Center welcomed the addition of three new baby cubs. Like many of their peers, they have to be bottle fed (usually with ewes milk) since the mother, a 5-year-old tigress at the center, can't produce enough to keep all three of them alive.

Hengdaohezi Felidae Breeding Center is one of the most successful breeding centers for Siberian tigers, also known as Amur, Manchurian or Ussuri tigers. According to an old AP report, the center had already bred over 750 tigers in captivity by 2007, and was beginning plans on releasing them into the wild.

According to Xinhua, there are now 800 tigers. If they were released into the area, that would increase the current population of Siberian tigers in China by over 3000%.