CLEVELAND — Visitors at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo will find some new additions to the wildlife at the zoo’s Wilderness Trek destination. An Amur tiger and two Mexican grey wolves are getting acquainted with their new habitat.
The 4-year-old female tiger, Zoya, is from Odense Zoo in Denmark and is the first tiger to come to the zoo since Hector arrived in 2017. The addition of Zoya is significant because Amur tigers are endangered in the wild with an estimated population of only 500.
Zoya will gradually be introduced to one of four interconnected habitats in the zoo’s Rosebrough Tiger Passage.
The zoo has also welcomed another endangered species—two Mexican grey wolves. Both wolves, Meraki and Sarra, are female and were born from the same litter in 2018.
They came to Cleveland from The Endangered Wolf Center which specializes in care for endangered wolf species.
These wolves were eliminated across the US by the 1970s, but have been slowly recovering through partnerships like the Endangered Wolf Center and the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo.
There are currently over 100 Mexican grey wolves living around the New Mexico and Arizona border.
The addition of Meraki and Sarra brings the total to five Mexican grey wolves with three males and two new females to the zoo.
