Cheetah quintuplets to be presented to public in Prague Zoo from next week

Starting next week, visitors to the Prague Zoo will be able to see five young cheetah cubs, just a few months old, the zoo announced on Friday.

Born in June in the Prague Zo, the quintuplets - four males and one female - are for now staying in a separate enclosure not accessible to the public with their mother, seven-year-old Daenerys.

"Despite her inexperience, their mother is taking exemplary care of them and remains in the back enclosure with her offspring," the zoo announced over the summer, adding: "The mother of the cubs continues to surprise us. Years ago she arrived from France in a weak physical condition and mental state" but is today "behaving maternally beyond expectations."

Announcing the news to journalists this week, Prague Zoo breeders said that although the cubs and their mother faced several health problems in the past three months, they've all seemed to overcome the complications and are now healthy enough to be presented to visitors.

Known as the world's fastest land animal, cheetahs are among the most endangered large felines today, with estimates putting their numbers in the wild at around 7,000.

"Since 2020, cheetah breeding in Europe has been experiencing a worrying decline," said Pavel Brandl from the Prague Zoo. "The population curve has only started to turn in a positive direction this year. For this species, every cub is crucial," he insisted.

A few days away from commemorating its 95th anniversary on Monday, the Prague Zoo has a long history of breeding the felines, dating back to the 1930s when it acquired a male cheetah, called Mignon, from the Kludský circus. In 1972, the Prague Zoo became only the third in the world to successfully breed cheetahs.