30 November 2012
A rare Chinese alligator is starting to make itself at home at the Albuquerque BioPark.
Zoo officials announced Friday that the male alligator was recently moved into the zoo's reptile house after spending about a month in quarantine. He had come from the Sedgwick County Zoo in Kansas.
Herpetologists plan to breed the male with a female Chinese alligator that will arrive from the Bronx Zoo next year.
The Albuquerque BioPark is part of a program that promotes conservation of the species through breeding and reintroduction.
Unlike the abundant American alligator, zoo officials say the Chinese alligator is endangered, with fewer than 130 surviving in the wild. Those that remain are confined to a small area in the Yangtze River basin in Eastern China.
