In early April, a plane full of animals left France for the east African country of Djibouti. On board were 7 Somali wild ass, 2 Grevy's zebra and 2 beisa oryx, and that is as much as i can tell from the attached report, these animals have been sent to a 30 acre conservation park near the main city in Djibouti. Does anyone have any more info on this project, and where the animals were sourced from, i believe Liberec zoo was involved too. Des ânes de Somalie, des zèbres et des oryx sont placés dans un sanctuaire à Djibouti
I have (at home). Will only be able to reply in more detail when back in a week's time or so. The park was set up to rescue local fauna and flora and has initiated all important local sensibilisation / educational programmes in order to protect the local endangered species. They hold gazelle, cheetah et cetera. The beisa oryx and Grevy zebra were added as locally they are functionally extinct. The Somali wild ass is for display purposes only. If my memory serves me correctly the Somali stallions were sterilised before travelling to Djibouti in order not to enable breeding of hybrid Somalis (the source populations were Ethiopia and Eritrea and both are now considered separate populations). Till last year they did have trouble attracting sufficient numbers of local Djiboutians. It is however a question of time and resources. Several mainly French zoos provide in situ conservation support to the park.
