Chester Zoo is celebrating the birth of a Persian onager, which the zoo says is one of the rarest animals on the planet.
Onagers are a relative of the domestic donkey and originate from Iran’s semi-desert areas. Diseases coming from livestock, illegal poaching, drought and overgrazing have all affected the onagers, resulting in their numbers more than halving in just the past 20 years. The zoo’s conservationists said that fewer than 600 wild onagers are still alive, so the birth of the new foal Jasper, whose name derives from the Persian word for a “bringer of treasure”, will help prevent the species from going extinct.
The zoo’s director for plants and animals, Mike Jordan, said that onagers are the world’s most threatened species of horse and one of the scarcest animals living at the zoo, so everyone was overjoyed at increasing the number of them around the world with the birth of the new foal. He added:
“The leggy youngster, who has been named Jasper by our team, is doing very well and mum Azita is doing a fantastic job of nurturing and bonding with her new charge. He’s full of energy and enjoys playfully kicking up sand as he races around his habitat.”
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Written by Kate
