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The name "Quagga" is an onomatopoeia from the sound the Quagga makes. Click the play button to hear it 

This project, started in 1987, is an attempt by a group of dedicated people in South Africa to bring back an animal from extinction and reintroduce it into reserves in its former habitat.

The project is aimed at rectifying a tragic mistake made over a hundred years ago through greed and short sightedness. It is hoped that if this revival is successful, in due course herds showing the phenotype of the original quagga will again roam the plains of the Karoo.

DNA analysis has shown that the Quagga was not a separate species of zebra but in fact a subspecies of the Plains Zebra (Equus Quagga) The Quagga, formerly inhabited the Karoo and southern Free State of South Africa. Like other grazing mammals, Quaggas had been ruthlessly hunted. They were seen by the settlers as competitors for the grazing of their livestock, mainly sheep and goats.

Read | Haley Harvey Back to Life (pdf 216kb)

By selective breeding from a selected founder population of southern Plains Zebras an attempt is being made to retrieve at least the genes responsible for the Quagga’s characteristic striping pattern.

When the Quagga mare at Amsterdam Zoo died on 12 August 1883, it was not realised that she was the very last of her kind. Because of the confusion caused by the indiscriminate use of the term “Quagga” for any zebra, the true Quagga was hunted to extinction without this being realised until many years later.

The official Quagga Project, South Africa: shades of Quagga

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8 months ago

Prof. Peter Heywood of Brown University, recently published a well-researched and in-depth book on the Quagga. He is pictured here with the Studbook Manger, Bernard Wooding, (on the left) and the Project Co Ordinator, March Turnbull, (on the right) during a field trip to Elandsberg. The book published by Cambridge University Press in 2022 is titled: The Life, Extinction and Rebreeding of Quagga Zebra. Significance for Conservation.
ISBN 9781108917735.
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