{"id":397515,"date":"2026-09-12T02:13:33","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T02:13:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/397515\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T02:13:33","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T02:13:33","slug":"busch-gardens-tampa-bay-adds-two-asian-elephants-in-conservation-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/397515\/","title":{"rendered":"Busch Gardens Tampa Bay Adds Two Asian Elephants in Conservation Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Busch Gardens Tampa Bay welcomed two female Asian elephants through the Association of Zoos and Aquariums&#8217; Species Survival Plan. Schottzie, 50, and Jati, 39, arrived Wednesday at the Tampa park.<\/p>\n<p>The Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden in Ohio sent both animals. Florida Highway Patrol provided escort services during transport.<\/p>\n<p>This Species Survival Plan recommendation fits within a broader conservation strategy.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These elephants come to us AZA&#8217;s SSP recommendation. The recommendation comes to us as part of a greater plan,&#8221; a spokesperson said in the announcement video shared on social media, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wtsp.com\/article\/life\/animals\/busch-gardens-tampa-bay-elephants\/67-fc7ff882-2d68-4d30-97af-4041ad7510c7\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">WTSP<\/a>. &#8220;So, being part of the SSP and AZA organization is you can pull animals to breed or you can be a facility that holds animals, like we are with our elephants to allow other facilities to bring in breeding groups.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Tampa acts as a holding spot. Other places in the program can then concentrate on breeding.<\/p>\n<p>Staff began working with Schottzie and Jati right away, though visitors won&#8217;t spot them until their public debut in several weeks.<\/p>\n<p>When the pair goes on display, guests will discover why conservation matters so much \u2014 the park plans to make learning a key piece of what people see and experience.<\/p>\n<p>Wild populations of Asian elephants face serious danger. The Species Survival Plan maintains genetic variety and keeps populations healthy across accredited institutions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Busch Gardens Tampa Bay welcomed two female Asian elephants through the Association of Zoos and Aquariums&#8217; Species Survival&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[19617,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-397515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-busch-gardens","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}