Two Yangon Zoo's elephants fly to Germany
After four years of negotiations, two elephants left here for Germany last week in return for a breeding pair of rhinoceroses and a male and two female lions, the weekly Myanmar Times reported Monday.
The two female elephants, Shu Thuzar and Aye Chan May, left on a chartered flight to Cologne on Tuesday under an exchange program between Yangon Zoo and Cologne Zoological Gardens, the paper said. The rhinoceroses and lions are scheduled to arrive from Germany within five months.
The Cologne zoo proposed the exchange because it wanted to increase its Asian elephant population with elephants from outside Europe and to counter the declining population of Asian elephants in the wild, the zoo's deputy director, Olaf Behlert, told the paper.
"If we do not breed them in zoos now, the Asian elephant will become extinct," Behlert was quoted as saying by the paper.
The Cologne zoo has enough male elephants for the two females from Myanmar for the European breeding program, according to Behlert.
The keepers of the two elephants accompanied them to Germany to help ensure a smooth transition for the animals as they adjust to their new home, the paper added.
The assistant director of Yangon Zoo, Saw Win, welcomed the program, saying it provided an opportunity for the zoo to acquire rare animals, the report said.
According to Saw Win, the zoo's only white rhinoceros is at an advanced age and it has only three lions of various ages.
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