Quagga - Breeding Resembling Zebras

Breeding Resembling Zebras

After the very close relationship between the quagga and surviving zebras was discovered, the Quagga Project was started by Reinhold Rau (1932–2006) in South Africa to recreate the quagga by selective breeding from plains zebra stock, with the eventual aim of reintroducing them to the wild. This type of selective breeding is also called breeding back. A foal of the Quagga Project, named Henry, was born on 20 January 2005. In early 2006, the third and fourth generation animals produced by the project were reported to look very much like the depictions and preserved specimens of the quagga. The practice of breeding back generally, and specifically whether optic similarity alone are enough to declare that this project has truly recreated the original quagga, are both controversial.

DNA from mounted specimens was successfully extracted in 1984, but the technology to use recovered DNA for breeding does not exist. In addition to skins such as the one held by the Natural History Museum in London, there are 23 known stuffed and mounted quagga throughout the world. A twenty-fourth specimen was destroyed in Königsberg, Germany (now Kaliningrad, Russia), during World War II.