Inter-Korean Tigers Have Love Cubs

A pair of white tigers, the female from South Korea and the male from Pyongyang's Central Zoo, gave birth last year to a litter of cubs, it has emerged belatedly. "Bera, a female white tiger that we gave to the North in 2004, and a male white tiger from the North, gave birth to three white cubs last August," the Seoul Zoo said on Sunday.

Bera, a full-blooded Korean tiger, was born in the Seoul Zoo in 1999 and was abandoned by her mother and raised by zookeepers. The zoo sent Bera to Pyongyang's Central Zoo in return for a Manchurian black bear from the North as part of the inter-Korean animal exchange program.

Kang Hyung-wook, chief of the Seoul Zoo's PR team, said, "North Korea has made unofficial promises that they will send us one of Bera's cubs and we are looking forward to seeing one at the zoo here."