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A trio of 6-month-old Sumatran tiger cubs are making their public debut at the San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park. This is the first litter of tigers to be born at the Park in 14 years.

Sumatran tigers are extremely rare and endangered with fewer than 500 believed to be alive in the wild. This subspecies of tiger, found exclusively on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, are threatened primarily by habitat destruction and poaching.

"The birth of these cubs is a very significant event at the Wild Animal Park because this species is on the brink of extinction. Our breeding efforts are aimed at creating a sustainable managed population to ensure their continued survival," explained Autumn Nelson, animal care supervisor for the Park.

The cubs, named Kemala, Sari and Rojo have spent the first several months of life bonding with their first-time mother Delta and getting to know their keepers in a non-public area of the Park.

"Tigers are solitary and secretive creatures in the wild, unlike lions, so we wanted to gradually get them comfortable with people they are unfamiliar with before introducing them to the public," said Nelson.

The youngsters rotate their time on exhibit with several of the Park's adult tigers, so they are typically viewable by the public only a couple days a week, but when they are they tend to be a crowd pleaser with their playfulness and excited exploratory behavior of their enclosure.