National Zoo cheetah cubs to make public debut

National Zoo cheetah cubs: Starting Saturday, a pair of cheetah cubs, one born via caesarian section, will be on display at Smithonian's National Zoo in Washington D.C.

|
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
A male cheetah cub is weighed in a bucket at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Va., in February 2011. A pair of cheetah cubs born in April will be on display at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., starting Saturday.

Two cheetah cubs are making their public debut at the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington.

Zoo members were given the first opportunity Tuesday to see the three-month-old cubs in their public enclosure. Beginning Saturday, the general public will be able to view the cubs for one hour at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.

The zoo says it plans to name the cubs after the fastest American male and female athletes in the Olympics 100-meter dash.

Scientists say every surviving cub is critical to sustaining the species, which is threatened with extinction in the wild. These new cubs are genetically valuable because their mother and father were first-time parents.

The cubs were born in April. One was saved after veterinarians performed a "rare and risky" emergency cesarean section.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to National Zoo cheetah cubs to make public debut
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0725/National-Zoo-cheetah-cubs-to-make-public-debut
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe