MOSCOW (AP) – A rare white Bengal tiger cub has died of the cold in Crimea amid a two-week power blackout, the zoo’s director said Friday.
Russian state news agencies quoted Oleg Zubkov, director of the zoo in the Black Sea resort of Yalta, as saying the 6-week-old male cub died after one of two generators at the zoo broke down. Employees have been struggling to keep all the animals warm, he said, adding that other animals are still in danger while the zoo was waiting for a replacement generator to arrive Saturday from Moscow.
“We’ve failed to maintain the temperature regime,” Zubkov told the RIA Novosti news agency. “These were white Bengal tiger cubs, they are very particular about the warmth.”
The cub that died is an offspring of Ukraine’s most famous tiger, Tigryulia, which became a symbol in Yulia Tymoshenko’s 2010 presidential campaign. Tymoshenko gave the albino tiger to the Yalta zoo after the campaign.
Zubkov did not give the exact date of the cub’s death and the zoo still has two of the dead cub’s siblings. Bengal tigers are rare species, with just 135 believed to live in Russia.