Sand cats are a very rare species with only about 116 left on earth. Rotem who lives at the Ramat Gan Safari Park in Israel was the only surviving sand cat at the park. She was in mourning for her lost mate.

The staff brought in a new male sand cat, Kalahari, from Sweden last September, hoping that he would become Rotem’s new mate, but Rotem wasn’t entirely interested in this new anxious fellow. The two avoided each other for a good deal of the time.

One day, the staff discovered that Rotem had given birth to a litter of three healthy kittens. Everyone was in complete shock.

“We had been extremely worried,” said Sigal Horowitz, spokeswoman of the Safari. “Here we had gone to all this effort to bring her a mate, a full year ago, and nothing was happening. And these are critical years for sand cats – they don’t live forever.”

Rotem the new mama takes excellent care of her three adorable, precious kittens.