Jennifer Long feeds the Calgary Zoo’s pink flamingos in a holding pen on July 9, 2013, after they lost their enclosure in the city’s floods.TODD KOROL/The Globe and Mail
The Calgary Zoo says accredited Canadian zoos have offered assistance in the wake of the devastation caused by the flooding.
Several have offered to give new homes to most of the animals forced out by the closure of the flood-damaged South American building.
Zoo spokeswoman Trish Exton-Parder says Winnipeg's Assiniboine Park Zoo will take the prehensile-tailed porcupines and cotton-topped tamarins, while Vancouver will take the Amazon parrots.
Safari Niagara will give new homes to the gibbons, Goeldi's monkeys and Amazon parrots, while the two-toed sloths will go to Riverview Zoo in Peterborough, Ont.
Magnetic Hill Zoo in Moncton, N.B., will take the giant anteaters, and hyacinth macaws.
The animals will be shipped to their new homes starting next week, thanks to WestJet, CargoJet and Fed-Ex.
Homes are still needed for the zoo's spider monkeys, Debrazza's monkeys and Andean condors.
"This kind of heart-felt co-operation further emphasizes the importance of the relationships we have with other professional institutions in North America," Jamie Dorgan, general curator of the Calgary Zoo, said in a news release.
"It makes a very difficult time for the Calgary Zoo a little easier knowing that the animals that must move on will receive excellent care."