White tiger gives birth to adorable rare cubs at Ukraine zoo
PA
The beautiful white tiger that became the symbol of Yulia Tymoshenko's Ukraine presidential campaign has given birth to four adorable cubs, including a rare albino one.
Three-year-old tigress Tigryulia successfully delivered the cubs and has since been reluctant to nurse them so the newborns are being taken care of by staff at the Skazka Zoo in southern Ukraine.
Zoo vet Sergei Trofimov told the Daily Telegraph how special the tiger cubs are.
'Four kittens from a cat is very rare. Why? Because, as a rule they give birth to two, maximum three. In this case we have four,' he said.
The zoo's director Oleg Zubkov said: 'There are only a very few white tigers in the world and - there are only a little over 100 in the world, so their birth in captivity is always a big event in the life of a zoo.'
'One of them is actually an albino. Usually these tigers are white with black stripes, but there are also albinos without black stripes,' he added
Skazka Zoo has launched a contest to name the four cubs with just one rule: each name has to contain the sound 'Yu' like Yulia Tymoshenko's first name.
Photos of the tigress and her cubs have been sent to Tymoshenko, who is in prison on charges of abuse of office after she lost the 2010 presidential election.
Tymoshenko fell in love with the tiger and made her a key image of her campaign, appearing on posters around the country.
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