Siberian Tiger eats its own baby cub

/ Yonhap

A 10-year-old Siberian tiger, a globally endangered species, has eaten its baby at a zoo in Busan, South Gyeongsang Province.

At The Park, the only zoo in the Busan area, the Siberian tiger gave birth to a cub which disappeared after 20 days, on Dec. 10. Zoo personnel did not find the carcass of the cub, but instead discovered a blood stain around the mother tiger’s mouth and presumed that she had eaten her own baby.

Some argued that the zoo failed to manage the tigers properly. While incidents of big cats biting and killing their own babies do happen, cases of them actually eating their young are extremely rare, animal activist groups said in blaming the management of the zoo.

Artificial rearing is customary for baby cubs, as the mother tiger can be under extreme stress after giving birth. Yet, the zoo put the mother tiger and the cub in the same cage.

The manager at The Park said, “On the day of the accident, the mother tiger tried to jump to its male tiger in the next cage but failed, which might have brought stress.”