ROARSOME!

First test-tube lion cubs offer hope for endangered big cats

TO their mother, they’re her pride and joy. To other big cats, however, they represent the survival of a species.

For Victor and Isabella are the world’s first IVF lion cubs.

Researchers say their birth marks an incredible breakthrough in the fight to save rare big cats such as the tiger and the snow leopard from extinction. The ‘test-tube’ cubs were born last week – just three and a half months after their mother was artificially inseminated. All three are now doing well at the Ukutula Game Reserve and Conservation Centre near Pretoria in South Africa.

Lions are endangered but now relatively stable in numbers in South Africa, making them ideal to practise techniques that could be used on more vulnerable species.

Lead researcher Dr Isabel Callealta, of the University of Pretoria, said: ‘The research will hopefully mean we can start working towards carrying out similar procedures on some of the much rarer big cats like the snow leopard and the tiger in the future.’

There are thought to be fewer than 4,000 wild tigers in Asia, fewer than 7,000 snow leopards in the mountains of Central Asia and as little as 300 Iberian Lynx in Spain. Scientists in Berlin have already produced embryos from African lions using frozen eggs.