Tiger cub born in captivity hailed as win for conservation

A tiger cub that has been born in captivity on Australia's Gold Coast, the first in seven years, has been hailed as a win for conservation.

The yet-to-be-named male cub, weighing in 1.3 kilograms, was born in the early hours of Saturday morning, the Dreamworld amusement park announced Wednesday. However, the team had to coax the cub's mother to leave the pen so the cub can be weighed and checked, describing her has "feisty".

Head keeper at the Dreamworld Tiger Island on the Gold Coast, Patrick Martin-Vegue, said the newly born cub will be a large part of their fundraising and tiger awareness efforts.

"This reinforces our program and gets us to talk about tiger conservation, as tigers are fairing very poorly in the wild," Martin-Vegue said.

Dreamworld is one of the largest zoological contributors to tiger conservation worldwide, having donated more than 2 million Australian dollars (U.S. dollars) to conservation projects, the park's general manager of life sciences said. Endi