After my meetings in Joburg were finished Saturday (March 29th) afternoon, it was too late for me to catch the last flight from Johannesburg to Bloemfontain. Although Cathay's forecasted second time birth was scheduled for Sunday March 30th (likely at night), she could also be giving birth on the night of March 29th. I cursed the meetings that made me late and got myself on the 8am flight the next morning.
There have been encouraging signs of Cathay in the past couple of weeks. After her first birth, where we did not have a choice but to take her cub away due to unseasonly cold weather, our team had thought this would be the end of her giving birth within the breeding center. There were fears that being now so used to the wild, she might be forever loathing an enclosed environment and fearful of any objects that would be put inside her cage. We began building a separate camp with possibly a den ( kindly offered by the artist Katerina). Then ex-tiger keeper at an English zoo Nick Marx wrote me offering advice after reading news of our first South China Tiger cub born outside China into our project. Eddy Van Ecke, whose sanctuary has been helping us with Junior, also voiced his suggestions. A few wooden dens were consequently built by our reserve manager Peter Openshaw. After some size adjustments, the boxes were finally put into the quarantine camp and fitted into the cages of the breeding center.
Time was running out and I was fearful it might have been too late again to train Cathay. But to my delight I saw she had taken to a liking of the inside cages of the breeding center and took shelter from the sun. She was cautious with the wooden dens and only retrieved the meat from inside of it up to a week before the forecasted birth. One time we had tied a piece of meat to the inside of the wooden den to entice her staying inside but the little rope was no match to her strength! I was worried that she might not go inside the box for the birth but thought she is a smart cat and would know that this would be a comfortable and relatively dark place for her cubs when time comes. Good news was just a couple of days before the forecasted birth, we found she stayed inside the box when humans were not around.
No delay with my flight Sunday morning and I was duely picked up by my colleague at Bloemfontain airport. After another two hours I arrived back at Laohu Valley around 12pm. No news yet! I took pleasure that I arrived ahead of Cathay's delivery and unpacked my suitcase. Before freshing up from the dust of the trip, I thought I would have a quick look at Cathay and Madonna (who is also due shortly).
I arrived at the breeding center at around 12.55 pm and last round of monitoring staff had left at 12 noon, having seen no signs of birthing. A 24 hour monitoring had been implemented sincethe previous day but next member was not due until one o'clock or so. I took my little Sony camera and went inside the breeding center. I was glad to see Cathay lying quietly inside the wooden den of the inner cage: "Good girl!" I thought, "She has now got comfortable with the den finally!"
I was adjusting my camera and my eyes away from the sun and my irises suddenly fixed on something! I looked away from the camera to have a better look and could not believe my eyes! There lay next to Cathay a tiny little tiger cub! My goodness! Cathay had quietly given birth!!!! It must have happened just now! The cub was not wet so Cathay must have already licked it clean before I arrived. Cathay was panting but calm and did not react to my arrival, except replying to my eye contact. The cub started climbing about, clearly searching for the mother's breasts for milk. I hurriedly went to my truck and called my team on the radio to inform them of this fantastic news. The cub was mobile and eventually got hold of one nipple of its mother after some searching around and climbing about and I was duely relieved as he suckled. Cathay seemed to have done all the things we were hoping she was doing!
At about 13.25, She started licking her vulva and it was a bit dark to see through my lense. When I tried to take a better look away from the camera, I saw the second cub of this litter already coming out of Cathay! I had unwittinly recorded the whole birthing sequence on our HD camera my staff had just brought me! Judging from the time it took Cathay to sever the umbilical cord and clean up the second cub, the first cub must have been born at 12.40pm. I had predicted that Cathay would have no more than 2 cubs this time given the size of her belly and I got lucky: about an hour later her placenta came out which she duely ate up. In the time that followed she licked her two new born cubs carefully at various times and would carefully carry them in her mouth to one or another quarter of the box, if they strayed a bit. I am so amazed that the tiger's mouth, with teeth that break bones easily, could also be so gentle as to carry such tiny and vulnerable cubs. Cathay was doing everything in slow motion, attentive to the cubs with great care to avoid hurting the cubs. I observed Cathay getting up to go to the outer cage to drink water and urinate for the first time after birth. When she came back, she chuffed at her little cubs, also for the first time! My heart melt seeing her gentleness towards them. The cubs were quiet except one little cry, whcih meant they were having enough milk they needed. They were quite active in between the suckling, much like their little brother born last November, possibly a trait of the South China Tigers. Staff told me later that Cathay was "digging holes" into the dried grass Sunday morning, and now I saw she was digging again and pushing the grass over the cubs to cover them - so Cathay must have known she was delivering. The cubs kept crawling out from under the grass and I am glad they do since I am a bit anxious that the cubs may get stifled by the thick grass or Cathay may lay on top of the grass, incidentally killing the cubs underneath.
According to conventions, and our observation of her first birth, there would be signs when her delivery approaches in the following order: refusing food the previous day, increased pacing, breaking water, contracting and giving birth. However no such signs were observed of Cathay in this birth! I keep on saying: a cat is a cat and a tiger is a cat, and every cat is different and everytime they may do things differently. Cathay has proven she is a good tiger mum but she continues to give us the unpredictable within the predictable, and vice versa.
Most births happen at night but not for Cathay this time either. I felt almost as if she was just waiting for me to arrive before delivering her baby tigers! I felt incredibly proud of her achievement of raising her own cubs, even though that means we won't know their gender for some time to come.
Monday (March 31) morning, all was well. 12 hours had passed and the cubs were being suckled by Cathay, whose milk did not dry up, a condition that could happen to some tigresses. She layed there with the cubs on her breasts most of the time and licks them gently from time to time, full of love and care.
All had gone fantastically well for the critical period of the first twenty-four hours at 2pm Monday. Cathay was placid with the tiny cubs on her side, drinking milk in between their little naps... I want to thank my team's dedication to help me make this finally happen, and for putting up with this demanding boss of theirs, who does not easily take all things given as given. I want to thank my friends and supporters who give me advice, suggestions and encouragement. Now we can focus on Madonna's upcoming first birth, whcih we foresee to be somewhat more challenging!
-Quan Li from Laohu Valley Reserve, South Africa
