Taiwan zookeeper facing fines for illegal liger cubs

Two liger cubs survived from the breeding of a male lion and female Bengal tiger in a Taiwan private zoo. The zookeeper is now under investigation.

The breeding and crossing of protected animals in Taiwan is illegal, but zoo keeper Huang Kuo-nan said he did not mean for the mating to happen between his lion and tiger. Huang said the two animals have lived in the same cage since they were young, but they started mating three years ago. The tiger never became pregnant though until now. "Usually when a lion and a tiger are kept together, they will for sure attack each other to death, but these two have been spending time together since they were small," Huang told Sky News. The tigress rejected her cubs, so the surviving two of the triplets are being hand-raised now. The liger cubs are the first ones of their kind in Taiwan and will be unable to reproduce. If Huang is convicted of breeding the lion and tiger to produce these liger cubs, he can be fined close to £1,000.