Two Pallas's cat's kittens handed over to Moscow Zoo

MOSCOW, November 19. /TASS/. The Moscow Zoo has become home to two Pallas's cat's kittens found in Russia's Buryatia region, according to a statement published on the Moscow mayor's website. "The kittens lost their mother soon after they had been born, they were weak and malnourished. They would have been unable to survive in the wild," the statement adds. Local residents who found the kittens gave them milk and baby food and later handed them over to a zoo in the region's capital of Ulan-Ude. Moscow Zoo experts kept providing advice to the zoo personnel to help them nurse the kittens back to health. "Both kittens are female, they have been named Alisa and Brungilda. They are about eight months old," the statement quotes Moscow Zoo Director General Svetlana Akulova as saying. She added that medical examination had shown that the newborns were healthy. The two kittens are living together for now but will be put to separate open-air cages when they get older. The Pallas's cat, named after German zoologist Peter Pallas who was the first to describe it, is one of the rarest felines in the world classified as an endangered species. The Pallas's cat, or manul, has been the symbol of the Moscow Zoo for over 30 years. Pallas's cats first arrived in the zoo in 1949, and since 1975, the facility has been able to make sure that the animals produce offspring on a regular basis. Nearly 150 kittens have been born since then. Many of the Moscow-born Pallas's cats now live in zoos in the United States, European and Asian countries. Read more