Newborn Jaguar Cub Makes Adorable Debut At San Diego Zoo [Video]

The little jaguar cub may not have a name, and San Diego Zoo officials don’t even know the sex yet, but it already has plenty of fans. The baby was born on March 12th, and is finally wobbling out of the den to the cave viewing area.

According to the NBC News, the mother is 7-year-old Nindiri and this is the third cub for the jaguar. At just 18 days old, the tiny jaguar cub still wobbles when it walks, and it is curious about its new surroundings outside the den.

Zoo goers can see the new baby on Play Days from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m, a zoo event that started on Saturday.

Zoo ambassador Rick Schwartz told ABC News the veterinarians are just starting to be able to look at the young cub.

“We’re at the stage now where there are times throughout the day where mom will leave the baby in the nesting area to go get some food or water for herself. In the zoo environment we take advantage of that and go ahead and take the baby while she’s away to do a health check with our veterinary staff.”

Nevertheless, he says that Nindiri is a great mother and is spending plenty of time helping her baby learn to walk and live. The mother decides when to bring the cub out to the viewing area for people to see, but Schwartz says she’s too proud to hide the little jaguar away too long.

“For the most part, honestly, she more often than not has the baby up front because she likes to show her new baby off. She’s right up there showing him off to everyone like, ‘Look what I did.'”

The jaguar cub joins a small endangered species. ABC7 reports that only about 10,000 jaguars remain in the wild, making the cub’s birth even more precious, according to senior zoo keeper Chad Summers.

“Because it’s a critically endangered animal, every birth is very, very important to us. We want to end extinction, here at the zoo, we are doing everything that we can to do that.”

The little feline bundle of joy isn’t the only newborn at the zoo.

As previously reported by the Inquisitr, the San Diego Zoo also recently welcomed a baby hippo. At the time, it was just learning how to swim with a little help from its mother.

Like with the jaguar cub, the newborn hippo is still getting used to the San Diego Zoo and its new fans.

[Image via Youtube]