True cuteness

I finally made it to the Calgary Zoo yesterday afternoon - I desperately needed endless colourful and beautiful things to photograph, lol. Luckily, when I passed the endangered Amur Tiger area, the three baby Tigers came outside for a short while. This one was just emerging from the covered, closed area, where you can just make out the mother lying down inside. There were so many people standing there and there always seemed to be tall people wearing light-coloured clothing that created really bad reflections in the glass. I managed to touch up this photo sufficiently to post : ) Don't you just love those huge paws and that tongue sticking out? Kind of reminds me of my baby pictures - I had my tongue sticking out in so many of them, ha! Three new animals make such a wonderful addition to the endangered Amur Tiger population. By the way, the Tigers have a huge area of trees, grass, fallen logs and a small creek running through the area - not like being in the wild, of course, but so much better than a small cage. They also have just a very small separated area (seen in my image above), with a hammock, where certain animals can be separated when necessary, for various reasons.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_tiger

Later note added on 14 June 2012:
Tigers that used to be known as Siberian Tigers are now known as Amur Tigers. The name change is because their range now only includes the Amur Valley in Eastern Siberia.

The link below is from YouTube, showing the three Amur Tiger cubs at the Calgary Zoo. This video from the den box camera was taken on Friday, April 20.

youtu.be/XFyAFe0nCeY