Female Amur tiger Kira with son Koba
SWEDEN Images show the regal-looking tiger affectionately resting her head on her adorable cub in Nordens Ark Wildlife Park, southwest Sweden.
Other pictures show the cub crawling over mum, while close-up shots of the cubs named Koba and Kimchi highlight their fluffy fur coats and cute expressions.
Tiger mum Kira was moved in 2023 from Banham Zoo in Norfolk, where she was born, to be a mate for Nordens Ark’s young resident male, Almaz.
This year in late July she gave birth to two adorable cubs, who are now just under four months old.
The Amur tiger, also known as the Siberian tiger is thought to be the palest tiger subspecies weighs up to 551 lbs and can reach almost ten feet in length.
These images were snapped by photojournalist, Christopher Godfrey from Norwich, United Kingdom.
“When I got to Nordens Ark and went to see Kira and her cubs, she immediately stared at me from across the large enclosure, then ran up to the window and rubbed her face against it where my hand was,” he told mediadrumworld.com.
“It was obvious that she recognised me and that made my day.
“The cubs’ mum, Kira, was born at Banham Zoo, Norfolk, in October 2021 and I had photographed her and her brother Luka often, as it’s one of my local wildlife parks and I visit regularly
“I travelled to Sweden specifically to photograph Kira and her youngsters.
“It was wonderful to see a tiger I had ‘known’ as a cub turn out to be such a fabulous mum herself – attentive, caring and playful with her youngsters, even though Kira herself was not yet three years old when I took the photos.”
ENDS.