A two-and-a-half-year-old white lioness named Azira gave birth to three healthy cubs in a private zoo in Borysew, Poland, on Tuesday.

Lion triplets are rare, and of those that are born, healthy trios seldom occur because deliveries are complicated and mothers sometimes reject the babies.

Andrzej Pabich, head of the zoo, told the Associated Press he feels three times as lucky that none of those concerns hindered the birth. "We had doubts whether it would be all okay; won't [she] reject them, will she have milk? But all went luckily well in the end. The mother accepted [the cubs], is feeding them, and is very caring."

White lions are not albinos but a rare color mutation of the Kruger subspecies of African lion found in some wildlife reserves in South Africa. Fewer than 100 white lions currently exist in captivity and in the wild.



