Female Sumatran tiger Jingga has given birth to 7 cubs at Topeka Zoo. She's going to a different zoo.
Jingga, the Sumatran tiger, has given birth to seven cubs during her time at the Topeka Zoo.
Now, at age 11, she's leaving to be paired with a male Sumatran tiger at another zoo.
Dec. 6 will be Jingga's last day on display at the Topeka Zoo, which indicated in a news release Thursday that it hadn't received permission from her next home to reveal where she's going.
The move is being made as part of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums' Sumatran tiger species survival plan, with which the Topeka Zoo is involved.
Specials survival plans make recommendations to pair animals while paying special attention to gene diversity in order to aid the sustainability and genetic variation of the species involved.
Jingga's departure will leave the zoo with five Sumatran tigers.
They are Sanjiv, with whom Jingga was paired under the species survival plan, and the four cubs born to them in 2018.
They are a female named Zayana and males named Badar, Bintang and Kansa Raja.
“Please don’t tell the other animals, but Jingga is my favorite," said Shanna Simpson, the zoo's animal curator, in Thursday's news release. "She is so fun to work with."
Sumatran tigers are listed as being critically endangered, according to Thursday's news release.
There are thought to be less than 500 individuals in the wild, it said.
Sumatran tigers can live up to 25 years in captivity.
Jingga was born in 2010 at the Sacramento Zoo and arrived in 2012 at the Topeka Zoo, where she and a male tiger named Rojo became parents of three cubs in 2014. Rojo left the Topeka Zoo in 2017.
Sanjiv also remains. He made news in April 2019 when he tackled a female zookeeper, who survived.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Female Sumatran tiger Jingga, mother of 7, is leaving Topeka Zoo
