Rare tiger cubs survive in Chinese zoo

Two cubs of the Manchurian tiger, one of the world's most endangered species, have defied natural survival rates after being born in a Chinese zoo, Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday.

The cubs, a male and a female, were born on 24th October in Yantai, eastern China and are being fed artificially.

Their mother, a 6-year-old, delivered four cubs, but only two survived.

Manchurian tigers, also known as Siberian tigers, have a natural first cub survival rate of only five per cent, the agency quoted experts as saying.

BBC Monitoring (http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk), based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.