The cubs are named Mawar, Tengah Malam and Pemanah – Rose, Midnight and Archer in Indonesian.
ADVERTISEMENTThree critically-endangered Sumatran tiger cubs made their public debut at the Taronga Zoo on Friday.
The three rare cubs were born in Sydney on January 17 to first-time mother Kartika. Zoo officials announced that they have been named Mawar and Tengah Malam, both female, and the male cub Pemanah – meaning Rose, Midnight and Archer in Indonesian.
Sumatran tigers, the most critically endangered tiger sub-species, are under increasing pressure as their jungle habitat shrinks, said the zoo's Mandy Everett, with their numbers estimated to have dwindled to around 350 in the wild.
She added: "But of that 350, there's probably only around 50 breeding pairs. So the numbers are very low and the opportunity for them to boost those numbers of their population is also quite low. So these three little cubs actually represent one per cent of that wild population.
"The threats that they are facing in the wild are habitat loss through deforestation and a lot of that is to do with palm oil plantations."
Zoo officials said 21 Sumatran tigers have been born in Sydney since 1980.