Pittsburgh Zoo nurses tiger cub back from dangerous infection
The endangered Amur tiger population is stronger by one cute cat that veterinarians at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium nursed back to health.
Toddling, growling and pouncing around an operating room-turned-nursery Tuesday, the unnamed 13-week-old female cub appeared fully recovered from a life-threatening systemic bacterial infection that required her separation from her mother and siblings at age 6 weeks, said associate veterinarian Dr. Ginger Takle.
"There's a responsibility we have for conservation, and (the cub) represents a very important part of that," Takle said. "One day she could grow up and have cubs herself."
An estimated 300 to 400 Amur tigers, also known as Siberian tigers, remain in the wild, and 150 are in captivity in North America, said Ken Kaemmerer, curator of mammals at the Highland Park zoo.
Pittsburgh's tigers are closer to their wild counterparts than most tigers in American zoos, because their "grandparents" were caught in the wild, zoo spokeswoman Tracy Gray said. Introducing genes from wild tigers into the captive population prevents problems such as inbreeding, she said.
The cub was one of three born in September to Toma, the zoo's female Amur tiger, and Taiga, a male tiger from the Denver Zoo. At the end of October, the cub developed an abscess at the base of her skull that wasn't visible to veterinarians, and that led to an infection that made her listless and unable to walk or feed.
The Pittsburgh Veterinary Specialty & Emergency Center in Ohio Township and PetsDX in Glenshaw helped zoo vets diagnose and locate the infection. With a strong cocktail of antibiotics and steroids, the cub recovered enough by late November that zoo staff began reintroducing her to her family.
The cub gets a few hours most days with her siblings, Takle said. Keepers and vets tried to keep her instincts sharp by feeding her meat and having her play with and pounce on stuffed toys. They've tried to acclimate her to her family's scent by bringing in handfuls of hay from their enclosure.
"She's very assertive," Takle said. "She's play-biting, pouncing on her siblings. ... Eventually, they warmed up to her."
Cub and mother are getting to know one another slowly. Staff were cautious about the mother's possibly rejecting or even hurting the cub, but so far things have gone well, Kaemmerer said. When handlers brought the cub's crate to the tiger enclosure, Toma walked up to it and "chuffed" — a huffing noise indicating a friendly greeting or happiness.
No date is set for the full "family reunion," but Kaemmerer said it could be soon.
