Reid Park Zoo's New Zebras Part Of Effort To Save Species

TUCSON - The Reid Park Zoo is welcoming two new residents coming in from Kansas and San Diego, a pair of zebras named Benjamin and Anna. The Association of Zoos and Aquariums wants the two to breed, in an effort to strengthen the species' numbers.

The move has the resident Grevy zebra, Tuari, moving north to the Phoenix Zoo. The plans are for him to mate with a resident female zebra living there. The work is part of the zebra's Species Survival Plan.

Benjamin, 16, was born at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. Five-year-old Anna comes from the Sedgwick County Zoo in Wichita, Kansas. The conservation work shows promise, but the zebra population is a fraction of what it used to be.

In the 1980s, there were more than 15,000 wild zebras—that number is down to fewer than 2,500 today, according to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

“Zoos are working to help save this magnificent animal through the AZA’s Species Survival Plan for Grevy’s zebra,” said Martha Fischer, who's with the Grevy's Zebra Trust and the St. Louis Zoo Center for Conservation in the Horn of Africa. “These cooperative breeding programs feature a number of zoos working together to ensure the survival of a species. Zoos are also playing a key role in sustaining critically endangered wild species in the field by supporting organizations, like the Grevy’s Zebra Trust, and by actively establishing a variety of conservation, research and education programs.”

Reid Park Zoo handler Diana checks Tuari's weight one last time before heading out to Phoenix:

The following zoos are members of the Grevy’s zebra SSP: Zoo Boise, Bronx Zoo, Brookfield Zoo, B. Bryan Preserve, Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, Caldwell Zoo, Calgary Zoo, Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, Dallas Zoo, Denver Zoo,Detroit Zoological Park, Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Fossil Rim Wildlife Center, Franklin Park Zoo, Glen Oak Zoo, Great Plains Zoo, Jackson Zoo, Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens, Zoológico de Leó, Lincoln Park Zoo, The Living Desert, Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens, Tampa’s Lowry Park, Zoo Miami, Smithsonian’s National Zoological Park, Oglebay’s Good Zoo, Oklahoma City Zoo, Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo, Phoenix Zoo, Pueblo Zoo, Sacramento Zoo, San Diego Zoo Global, Sedgwick County Zoo, Saint Louis Zoo, Toronto Zoo (non-AZA SSP participant), Valley Zoo (non-AZA SSP participant), The Wilds, and White Oak Conservation Center.

Tucson has two "zoos" that are helping save the animals. The Arizona-Sonora Desert Institute is caring for an endangered Ocelot kitten.