HUNGARY: Three Siberian tiger cubs are the attraction of a small privately-run zoo east of the capital Budapest

Record ID: 849274

  • Title: HUNGARY: Three Siberian tiger cubs are the attraction of a small privately-run zoo east of the capital Budapest
  • Date: 26th May 2012
  • Summary: ABONY, HUNGARY (MAY 24, 2012) (REUTERS) CLOSE OF TIGER CUBS COMING OUT OF THEIR HOUSE ZOO KEEPER TIBOR TOTH CALLING TIGERS TO COME OVER TO FEED TIGER CUB WALKING IN GRAS VARIOUS OF TOTH BOTTLE FEEDING TIGER CUB VARIOUS OF ZOO ASSISTANT PETTING TIGER CUBS VISITORS LOOKING TIGER CUBS PLAYING WITH BALL AND WITH EACH OTHER (SOUNDBITE) (Hungarian) ZOO KEEPER TIBOR TOTH
  • Embargoed: 10th June 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Hungary
  • City:
  • Country: Hungary
  • Topics: Quirky,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
  • Reuters ID: LVAQSU0QH7GJKCJHAVO17M9XXWL
  • Aspect Ratio:
  • Story Text: Three small tiger cubs have become the attraction of a small zoo in Abony, 90 kilometres east of the Hungarian capital of Budapest. Visitors flock to the private zoo owned by Tibor Toth en masse to get a sight of the cute Siberian baby tigers and be able to hold and pet them for a moment.
    The new additions to the zoo have brought Toth a step closer to fulfilling his dream of caring for a lots of animals around him. Having started his zoo about 15 years ago, Toth has earned a name for raising and taming lions and tigers.
    The three female tiger cubs were born near Hamburg in Germany, but ended up in Hungary when they were only two and a half weeks old as their mother got ill and could not feed them any more.
    The cubs are six monts old now and growing fast, drinking goats milk and eating special tiger feed.
    Toth says he was inspired by Austrian-born naturalist and wildlife preservationist Joy Adamson, who in her book "Born Free" told the story of how she and her husband raised a lion cub and trained it to fend for itself. The famous cub named Elsa was later released back into the wild.
    "Once I got hold of this book by Joy Adamson, where she writes about the loyalty of the lions and raising lions...and I was captured by this and I really wished I had animals around me like she did. But Africa is very far away. Then once I got the chance to pet baby tigers and then I said to myself this is my dream, this is what I want," Toth told Reuters TV.
    So in the middle of the 1990s, only a few years after the collapse of communism, Toth decided to start building his zoo.
    He got a plot of land from the town and his zoo, which at the start had only a few animals, counted more than 60,000 visitors last year. It is financed from entry fees and personal donations and survives without any support from the state.
    Toth says the tiger cubs will stay in the zoo and he even hopes to breed tigers, as the cubs will soon get company.
    "It has become our slogan that we will bring a male tiger for them and then we will have lots of small Hungarian tigers," Toth said jokingly.
    The liveliest of the three cubs has been named after the Russian river Ussuri, while the other two have more girlish names: Reika and Nadinka.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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