Tigers in a South Korean amusement park eye bus passengers. Captivity may come to be the only hope for tigers' survival. For a tiger cub, an adult can be either. The cubs' mother is their lifeline, providing food, hunting lessons, and protection from danger. When their mother goes hunting, often for hours on end, she must hide the cubs as best she can.
Males are another story.
They may even kill the cubs. Tongue baths are only one of many jobs for a tiger mother. Cubs are blind for their first fortnight after birth, and they remain dependent on their mother for two years. That's what a deer sees as it eyes black stripes in the distance. Killing is hard work, so tigers seek the largest prey they can get and stash the carcass for several days of easy feeding.