As animal caregivers, there’s absolutely nothing happier than to be able to witness their animal friends live peacefully, grow steadily and if possible give birth to healthy, lively babies. The staff at Animal Park of Sainte Croix (Parc Animalier de Sainte Croix), France has just had such a chance. On May 18th, their dear girl Freyja successfully delivered three lovely kittens at the park, only there days after the charming lynx celebrated her 7th birthday herself.
Even though they already welcomed the three new members to their big family in mid-May before the eyes of the animal team and several lucky visitors, it’s not until about one month later that the park announced the thrilling news on their Facebook and asked their followers to help name the newborns. Accordingly, the little lynxes were named Styx (female), Eros (1st male), and Nassak (2nd male).
The three lynx kittens experienced their first medical exam by the animal team and the vets when they were one month old. The process consisted of weighing, size measure, gender determination, general check-up, deworming, and microchipping. Each of them weighed over 2.2 lb (1 kg) at that moment and thankfully, the whole litter was perfectly healthy.
Freyja arrived at the Animal Park of Sainte Croix in 2015 and was named after the Norse goddess who is in charge of love, fertility, and battle. This fierce girl is a Eurasian lynx – the third largest predator in Europe (after the brown bear and the wolf) and the largest among the four lynx species, including the Canada lynx, Iberian lynx, Eurasian lynx, and the bobcat. An adult Eurasian lynx like Freyja often measures about 32 to 51 in (81 to 129 cm) in length and weighs 40 to 66 lb (18 to 30 kg).
Freyja shares her territory at the park with her partner Ruska, her big kid Silva and now her other three babies Styx, Eros, and Nassak.
Although they weren’t the first litter of the strong mom Freyja, she still deeply cared about her smol kittens.
You can watch them in the short yet sweet clip right there:
