Dreamworld welcomes Sumatran tiger cubs

Tiger Island at Dreamworld is growing, with Soraya, one of the park's Sumatran tigers giving birth to a litter of tiger cubs on Saturday afternoon.

Soraya, one of Tiger Island's Sumatran tigers is currently giving birth to Dreamworld's first ever litter of Sumatran cubs.

Dreamworld is one of the few zoos around the world that participates in a breeding programme to help boost numbers of the critically endangered Sumatran tiger via the international Sumatran Tiger Program. Dreamworld joined the programme in 2003 when Soraya was first brought to the park from Germany.

In late-2005 she was joined by Raja, a male tiger. The park's initial hopes for the first offspring in late-2006 were not off by much, with Suraya giving birth March 31 2007.

Dreamworld's new Sumatran tiger family will not be on display as these tigers are kept in a separate enclosure from Tiger Island's dominant Bengal tiger population. Considerable size differences between the two sub-species means they can't be kept in the same enclosure and their limited human contact means they can't be handled by the attraction's staff.

Visitors to the park can however get a glimpse of the new tigers via closed-circuit monitors around Tiger Island.

Sumatran tigers originate from the Indonesian island of Sumatra with as few as 400 extimated to remain in the wild, predominantly in national parks on the island. They are the smallest of all tigers, weighing about half as much as Bengal tigers.