Tiger cub from Philadelphia sent to Oklahoma zoo accepted by new mom

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Tuesday, July 25, 2017
Tiger cub sent to Oklahoma zoo accepted by new mother
Tiger cub sent to Oklahoma zoo accepted by new mother. Rick Williams reports during Action News at 11 p.m. on July 24, 2017.

OKLAHOMA CITY -- A tiger cub that was rejected by her mother at the Philadelphia Zoo has been accepted by a new mother at the Oklahoma City Zoo.

Officials with the two zoos said Monday that the Amur, or Siberian, tiger cub named Zoya was accepted by the mother, a Sumatran tiger named Lola.

Zoya is the lone survivor of five cubs born July 9 to a first-time mother in the Philadelphia Zoo, and the mother rejected her.

Lola had given birth a day earlier to three cubs of her own, leading to the transfer of Zoya to Oklahoma City because of the similarities of the two subspecies of tigers.

Both Amur and Sumatran tigers are endangered with fewer than 500 of each believed to be living in the wild.