Nature Features

Amba and Rana, who live at the Shepreth Wildlife Park needed plenty of cat naps after they celebrated Amba's 10th birthday, in special diva style.

Happy birthday to me

Staff had invited hundreds of people to pop by and watch the pair as they munched on special tiger cake, sniffed out zoo poo (yuk), and played with footballs given to them by Cambridge United players.

The queues into the high-profile party led right back through the village (no guest list here), and everyone went tiger crazy, painting their faces and nails with orange and black stripes.

Guests old and young agreed it was a pretty great party (there was cake, footballers, and Amba didn't throw any tantrums) -  but it had a serious side to it as well. The park is trying to raise awareness of the fundraising they do to help protect and save the species.

All this attention is so tiring

Amba's party helped to raise funds in aid of the tiger conservation charity - 21st Century Tiger. To date Shepreth Wildlife Park has raised over £7,500 for the charity.

One hundred years ago there were 100,000 tigers. Today, this figure stands at little more than 3,000.

Rebecca Willers, a manager at the park says: "If it wasn't for modern zoos, we would lose tigers completely.

If we're not careful, within 50 years they will become extinct, like the dodo..."

You can listen to Rebecca talking to BBC Radio Cambridgeshire reporter Keith Murray about Amba's birthday party, and the plight of tigers in the wild by clicking the link below: