Endangered tiger cub born at Flamingo Land zoo

A rare Sumatran tiger has been born at a North Yorkshire zoo.

The tiger, whose sex has not yet been established, was born to mother Surya and father Bawa just after 18:00 BST on Friday.

It is the fourth cub to be born at Flamingo Land zoo in more than 20 years, with triplets being born to the same breeding pair in 2014.

In the 1970s, there were 1,000 Sumatran tigers in the wild but there are now believed to be around 300.

Zoo manager Ross Snipp said although it was early days the cub looked to be "very strong." Its birth followed an earlier miscarriage by its mother.

Ms Snipp said: "We would not normally make this announcement so early but we are so proud of our work in this particular field that we wanted to give as many children as possible the chance to see him or her before the schools go back."

The zoo said mother and cub could be viewed via a live direct link to the special cubbing den at the tiger exhibit.

The cub's parents arrived at Flamingo Land in 2010 in the hope that they would produce offspring as part of a worldwide conservation effort to save the Sumatran tiger from extinction.

Sumatran tigers are found only on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

They are the smallest of all tigers and also have the narrowest stripes.

They have webbing between their toes which makes them good swimmers.

Habitat loss is the main threat to the endangered tigers.

The next threat is poaching.

Source: Flamingo Land