Shar Pei nurses 2 endangered tiger cubs in Russia
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Two Siberian tiger cubs abandoned in Russia by their mother have found an unusual wet nurse — a wrinkled, sand-colored Shar Pei dog named Cleopatra, a zoo worker said Wednesday.
The cubs were born late May in a zoo at the Oktyabrsky health resort in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
Zoo assistant director Viktoria Kudlayeva said the dog immediately gave the cubs all her attention.
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"She accepted them right away," Kudlayeva said in a telephone interview. "She's cleaning them and breast feeding them as if they were her own. And they also sleep together."
The cubs — named Clyopa, after their adopted mother, and Plyusha — are also being fed goat's milk.
Kudlayeva said that the cubs pose no danger to the dog even though they are already showing their claws and hissing.
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"They aren't aggressive and they depend on her for feeding," she said.
Fewer than 400 Siberian tigers — also known as Ussuri, Amur or Manchurian tigers — have survived in the wild, most of them in Russia's Far East.