One of Denver Zoo’s newest residents is a 435-pound tiger named Yuri.
Yuri arrived at the zoo in late January by way of the Bronx Zoo in New York City. He’s spent the last few weeks getting comfortable in his new home inside the zoo’s The Edge exhibit.
One he gets settled, Yuri will be introduced to 8-year-old Nikita, a female tiger, in the hopes that he may make a valuable “contribution to his endangered species.” And because Yuri hasn’t fathered any cubs yet, the zoo says his genetics are particularly valuable to maintaining a healthy and genetically diverse population of Amur tigers.
Yuri was also featured on Animal Planet’s The Zoo, which takes viewers behind the scenes at the Bronx Zoo. Visitors at the zoo can identify him by the heart-shaped markings above his eyes.
Amur tigers are considered endangered, mostly due to poaching, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Yuri was born in 2010 at the Erie Zoo in Pennsylvania.
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