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Two Koreas to Exchange Weasels, Hippos Across DMZ
59 minutes ago Oddly Enough - Reuters
SEOUL (Reuters) - North and South Korea have arranged for an exchange of zoo animals, including Siberian weasels, near their hugely militarized border to bolster animal stocks in both states, zoo officials said Wednesday.
Seoul Grand Park Zoo said the exchange with Pyongyang Central Zoo would take place Thursday at Kaesong, just north of the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone that bisects the peninsula.
Co-operation between North and South, which have remained technically at war since the inconclusive truce which halted the 1950-53 Korean conflict, is laced in symbolism. This will be their first official zoo animal exchange.
The North was to send 16 animals, including Asiatic black bears, lynx, coyotes, African ponies and Siberian weasels, zoo officials said.
The South would send 10, including hippopotamuses, red kangaroos, wallabies, guanacos and llamas, they added.
The eight black bears from the North are to be used for breeding purposes to help repopulate the species in the South and the other animals will go on display.
"Coyotes are rarely seen in the South. It will be a new experience for zoo visitors here to see them," Lee Won-hyo, the director-general of Seoul Grand Park Zoo, said by telephone.
The animals from the North must undergo a quarantine inspection before crossing over.
South Korea has stepped up quarantine measures on the border following an outbreak of bird flu in Pyongyang that led the secretive communist state to cull over 210,000 chickens.
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