Rare cubs born

TWIN TREAT: Two rare clouded leopard cubs have been born in the US.

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Two endangered clouded leopard cubs have been born at the Smithsonian Conservation and Research Center in Front Royal, Virginia.

Staff had been on pregnancy watch of the cub's mother, two-and-a-half year-old clouded leopard Jao Chu, for five days.

She gave birth to a litter of two cubs, her first, early Tuesday morning. 

She and the cubs' father, two-and-a-half year-old Hannibal, were born in Thailand in a collaborative research program with the Zoological Park Organization of Thailand.

The cubs' gender will not be known until the first veterinary exam.

The clouded leopard is found only in Southeast Asia and ranges through southern China, the eastern Himalayas, northeast India, and southeast Asia. It is thought to be extinct in Taiwan.

The World Conservation Union estimates that fewer than 10,000 individuals exist and warns that the population is declining.

Habitat loss due to widespread deforestation and hunting for use in Chinese medicinal preparations are thought to be causing populations of the clouded leopard to decline.

- Reuters