San Diego Zoo Global, the organization working to save endangered animals, has announced a partnership to build a new facility in New Orleans.
The new project, dubbed The Alliance for Sustainable Wildlife, will work with more than two dozen endangered and threatened mammal and bird species and will be run in partnership with the Audubon Nature Institute.
San Diego Zoo Global operates three facilities including the San Diego Zoo, the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, and the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research.
This isn’t the organization's first project extending beyond San Diego. There are programs in dozens of countries along with the Frozen Zoo, Native Seed Gene Bank, the San Clemente Loggerhead Shrike Breeding Facility and the Desert Tortoise Conservation Center among others.
The organization’s most visible efforts are its giant panda program. Staff members have helped increase the number of pandas at China’s Wolong Breeding Center from 25 to more than 100.
The most recent panda cub born in San Diego, Xiao Liwu, is the sixth cub born to Bai Yun who arrived in San Diego in 1996.
The Alliance hopes to help species like okapis, bongos and Masai giraffes that are considered threatened.
The center’s construction is slated to begin before the end of the year with the center’s breeding program to start in 2014.
Photo Credit: San Diego Zoo Global