What is the Quagga plan?

The project stems from a plan to reintroduce a version of the quagga, an extinct species of zebra, into the population by selectively breeding in South Africa and then reintroducing them into the original quagga plain.

Apparently, in 1987 Reinhold Rau discovered that there was a very close relationship between quaggas and extant plains zebras. However, in breeding back, this quagga-like zebras will only resemble the quagga in appearance but they will be genetically different, as there is no known way to recover DNA.

The quagga was a plains zebra that was believed to extinct in the late 19th century. However, studies have shown that that a sub-species of this zebra exists.

The zebra looks different to others in that the head and the front part of the body appear striped white and brown and then fades into the color brown the farther you move toward the back of the horse. When they existed, they were found mostly in the Karoo of Cape Province and the Orange Free State of South Africa.

Unfortunately, a quagga does not exist anymore. The quagga was a type of zebra that is now extinct. That means it no longer exists. The population of the quagga died down until no more of these zebras lived on earth. It is believed that these animals became extinct around 1900. These zebras date back to probably ancient times due to the pictures on them found on caves.

However, there is hope to bring back the quagga. It may seem impossible to bring back the quagga because some animal scientists believe that the last quagga to exist and die was not in 1883 like first expected. The plan is now that there was another quagga living and there could be more.

There was a quagga that is extinct, but equus quagga is the plains zebra that is the most common zebra species. It is found extensively from Ethiopia to Botswana and east to Kenya. In September 1975, Rheinold Rau, who was at that time a renowned museum taxidermist in Cape Town, initiated a plan to breed back the so-called extinct Quagga.

Molecular studies compared genetic code sequences of Mitochondrial DNA extracted from a Quagga’s skin tissues. Comparison with genetic code sequences of the Plains Zebra showed a close affinity between the two, indicating that the Quagga was a subspecies of the Plains Zebra.

The plan was to breed the Quagga back. Critics point out that it is a sub-species and there is no sound reason for suggesting that it has significant adaptive features and no reason to believe that animals produced in the selective breeding programme would survive successfully