Friday Fun Stuff--Friday Cat Blogging

Bety, a female white tiger, holds one of her three 45 days-old cubs at the Buenos Aires Zoo, Thursday, Feb. 8, 2007. The captive Bengal white tiger gave birth to two females and one male on Dec. 23, boosting these animals' endangered population. There are only 240 white tigers in the world. (AP Photo/Eduardo Di Baia)

I usually don't do Friday cat bloggings here, but this story and the photos were too good to resist. From Yahoo News:

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - Three white tiger cubs just weeks old debuted Thursday at the Buenos Aires Zoo in Argentina, romping in pen before delighted children and their parents.

The cubs — two females and a male — were born Dec. 23 to Conde and Bety at the zoo in the Argentine capital, and had since been kept out of view.

"This is their first big day out," zoo spokeswoman Ana Maria Pirra told The Associated Press, adding the cubs were in good health.

Three white Bengal tiger cubs sit in a cage at Buenos Aires' Zoo February 8, 2007. A female white tiger named Betty gave birth to three cubs on December 23, 2006. (Marcos Brindicci/Reuters)

Pirra said the cubs weighed about 2.2 pounds at birth and were gaining weight fast, with each now weighing about 13 pounds.

She said none of the cubs has yet been named, and that children — who watched with delight as the cubs cavorted playfully Thursday — deposited name suggestions in a box at the zoo, along with their contact information. The cubs' names will be chosen in a drawing in three months, she said.

"Each of the winners will be a godfather or godmother to a cub," Pirra said.

Conde and Bety had triplets in 2002, and two years later had another six cubs.

Two white Bengal tiger cubs play in a cage at Buenos Aires' Zoo February 8, 2007. (Marcos Brindicci/Reuters)

Reminds me of a great little poem I once read--William Blake's The Tiger:

TIGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

A white Bengal tiger cub presses his face against the glass inside a cage at Buenos Aires' Zoo February 8, 2007 in their first public appearance since being born late last year.. (Marcos Brindicci/Reuters)