MAY 28,
2019
Two white
tiger cubs have been taken to their new home at the Nicaragua National Zoo,
where the playful pair will join a menagerie of rare big cat species.
The
siblings, named Osman and Halime, are both five months old and the only animals
of their kind in Central America, zoo director Eduardo Sacasa said on Monday.
They were
donated from a Mexican zoo, home to their parents, and are the third generation
of tigers born in captivity in that country, he added.
White
lions and tigers are both extremely rare, numbering only a few hundred
worldwide, and owe their appearance to a recessive gene. They are not albino or
a separate tiger subspecies.
The World
Wildlife Fund (WWF) estimates that the number of wild tigers has plunged from
100,000 in 1900 to around 3,900 today.
Numbers
have risen in recent years but the species is still vulnerable to extinction,
the WWF says.
"In
their natural
habitat they are almost extinct... there's more living in zoos
(than in the wild)," Sarcosa said.
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