3/3/20 Onagers(?) at WWZ

Certainly a surprising, bizarre, and unusual addition for this glorified roadside zoo! I do wonder where they would have come from considering the SSP has been working very hard to coordinate their program.

I'm wondering if they're perhaps Kulan? Either surplus from Lion Country or from a private keeper. Seems a little more likely to me tbh.

~Thylo

I couldn't find anything on these onagers were brought in. How in the world were they obtained?

@ThylacineAlive how can one tell the difference between a kulan and a onager. When I visited the now closed Wilson's Wild Animal Park in Virginia, they had a kulan so it's possible they got from there.

@drill Honestly, I don't know. I'd be willing to bet these are Kulan, though. Lion Country has apparently gone out of the species so animals are out there, somewhere.

~Thylo

@ThylacineAlive no Kiangs in US collections?

@drill I don't think so. I seem to recall Shadow Nursery having a couple left but they're closed and who knows what happened to those animals. These definitely are not Kiang, however.

Having shown the photo to @TeaLovingDave he seems confident they are Kulan.

~Thylo

Has anyone tried emailing them about it?

Thank you all so much for the help! I’m definitely leaning more towards them being kulan now. Still might try emailing WWZ sometime soon to try and figure out where exactly they came from.

I would like to add to this conversation that the zoo in press releases and on their website states them as onagers, but considering it's WWZ, there could defiantly be some misidentification.