Zoologist plays cupid for tigers

APPLE VALLEY, Minn., Jan. 3 (UPI) -- A tiger expert at the Minnesota Zoo has a complicated task matching up big cats around the United States to find the best mates.

Ron Tilson is in charge of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association's Tiger Species Survival Plan, a task that involves genetics and geography, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported. Where possible, he moves Siberian tigers north to give them the cold climate their ancestors evolved in, exchanging them for tropical Indo-Chinese and Sumatran tigers.

His latest match-making effort involves a pair of Siberian tigers, who are being brought to Minnesota in hopes that they will make more tigers. Serge is coming from Little Rock, Ark., while Nadia's home was in Billings, Mont.

Little Rock is also giving up Serge's brother, Dmitri, to the Philadelphia Zoo, getting a pair of Indo-Chinese tigers from the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha in return. Billings gets another Siberian from Minnesota.

Tilson said his job would be almost impossible without computer tracking.

"If I didn't stick with the plan, I would just be lost," he told the Pioneer Press. "There's just way too many tigers coming and going."