Rare white tiger cubs born at Cuba's National Zoo in Havana

Zoos at Cuba's National Zoo in Havana celebrate the birth of four Bengal tiger cubs, including a rare white tiger.

The four striped cubs' birth on March 12 took place after trying to breed the endangered animals for 20 years. The cubs were born to Fiona and her friend Garfield.

"It was a normal birth. Everything went well and she has now started to fulfill her role as a mother, 'said Angel Cordero, a tiger specialist at the zoo. "She's a great mother."

The cubs have not been named yet and their sexes have not been announced

White tigers are a genetic variation of the better known orange Bengal tigers. Thousands of tigers once wandered the jungles of Bangladesh, India and Nepal. But their numbers have dropped to about 2,500, according to physicists. Poaching, deforestation and overhunting all took their toll.

"All births in the zoo are singificant, but we give more prirotiy to a birth when an animal that is on verge of extinction is born, because we know that we are helping this species not to disappear from the world, "said Cordero. "Cuba is a small country with few resources, so we are happy to be involved in all that is good for the world."

Three of the world's nine tiger species became extinct last century, and many scientists believe that a fourth, the South Chinese tiger, is already extinct.