Cuteness overload — five times over! The Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute has wonderful news to share: five healthy cheetah cubs were born on Monday, October 5, to proud first-time mother Zura at the conservation campus in Front Royal, Virginia.
The tiny newborns are thriving. Keepers report that five-year-old Zura is caring for her babies with great tenderness, and all five are nursing and staying active. Their father is Flash, a nine-year-old male — and, as with all cheetahs, dad leaves the parenting entirely to mom.
Best of all, you can meet the family without leaving home: the beloved Cheetah Cub Cam is back online, streaming live from the den for free on the Zoo’s website. (Fair warning — Zura may move her little ones around the habitat, so they might wander out of view now and then!)
This is a true conservation success story. Zura herself grew up in front of the Cheetah Cub Cam back in 2021, and today four generations of her family — great-grandmother Sanurra, grandmother Rosalie, Zura and the cubs — live at the campus. It is a powerful sign of hope for a species with fewer than 7,000 animals left in the wild, listed as vulnerable to extinction by the IUCN.
Photo: Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute
