Wroclaw Zoo to Become Home for Okapi

The facility has been selected as one of three in Europe to join the okapi breeding programme. Wroclaws zoo staff admit that this is a success comparable to winning the Champions League in football. A total of 29 European zoos applied to the okapi breeding programme. An international committee from the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria made their decision based on different zoos size, breeding achievements to date and animal care level. Wroclaw zoo scored especially for their idea of a winter pen, a pavilion heated with infrared radiators, with glass screens, through which the animals would be visible for visitors. Nine specimens of okapi will arrive to Wroclaw this autumn, it is not yet known, however, from which breeding facility the animals will arrive, and how many of them there will be. Okapi are considered very mysterious animals: at first classified as weird zebras, turned out to be a type of giraffe. Okapi are extremely hard to spot in nature, and there are only a few pictures of them in the wild, taken by means of automatic cameras. Even fewer are cases of white people seeing a specimen with a naked eye. One thing is definitely certain, and that is the rapid diminishing of okapis range as every day passes. In August last year 14 okapi were slew by Congo rebels, who attacked okapi breeding centre in Epulu, Africa.