A four-year-old female Amur tiger named Sarang flew from Seoul to Ohio on July 16, 2026, and is now at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. Her transfer took more than two years to arrange and required two zoos, two international breeding programs, a wildlife permit file and a cargo airline.
Sarang came from Seoul Zoo in South Korea. The recommendation that moved her was issued in 2023 under the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums Global Species Management Plan for Amur tigers.
What a Global Species Management Plan does
Most American readers know the Species Survival Plan, the AZA program that decides which animals breed and which move within North America. A Global Species Management Plan is the same idea with the borders taken out. It coordinates a species across regional zoo associations, so that a tiger in Seoul and a tiger in Columbus can be treated as members of one population rather than two.
That matters for a cat with as few founders as this one. Moving an animal between continents is the only way to introduce genetics that a single region does not have, and it is the reason anyone would spend two years on paperwork to move one tiger.
Sarang’s transfer also feeds the AZA Amur Tiger Species Survival Plan, which manages the North American side.
“We’re grateful to our partners at the Seoul Zoo for entrusting Sarang to our care and to WAZA and AZA for the years of collaboration that made her arrival possible,” said Tom Schmid, president and CEO of the Columbus Zoo.
“We are very proud that Seoul Zoo is able to make a meaningful contribution to the conservation of internationally endangered species,” said Park Jin-soon, director of Seoul Zoo. “We hope Sarang’s transfer to the United States will serve as an important milestone in securing a successful future for the Amur tiger.”
Getting a tiger across the Pacific
The move needed veterinary and logistical planning, permitting and specialized transport. DHL Express coordinated the flight and worked to keep the travel time short. Columbus Zoo staff traveled with Sarang from South Korea to Ohio.
“Moving an animal like Sarang requires much more than transportation,” said Laurice Bancroft, senior vice president of operations for DHL Express Americas. “It requires careful planning, close collaboration, and the expertise of our international network.”
On arrival she began a routine quarantine and acclimation period with the zoo’s animal care and conservation medicine teams. The zoo said it would announce viewing opportunities later, once she has had time to adjust.
How many Amur tigers are left?
Columbus Zoo puts the wild population at roughly 500, and notes that Amur tigers hold Appendix I listing under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, the strictest category of international trade protection.
It is worth being precise about where those two numbers come from, because they come from different places. The IUCN Red List assesses the tiger, Panthera tigris, as Endangered under criteria A2abcd, in a 2021 assessment with a decreasing population trend. That assessment is for the species across its whole range. The Red List carries no separate assessment for the Amur subspecies, so the figure of about 500 is not a Red List number: it comes from range-state monitoring in the Russian Far East and northeastern China. Both facts are true, and neither one is the other.
Amur tigers are the largest of the tiger subspecies and the only one adapted to cold, snowy country. Habitat loss, poaching and conflict with people remain the threats.
Sarang joins Lewis and Clark, two Amur tiger brothers who came to Columbus earlier this year through the AZA SSP and are now just over two years old. Elsewhere in the program, Utah’s Hogle Zoo took in a male Amur tiger named Maxim on a similar recommendation.
For a species whose entire wild population would fit in a college lecture hall several times over, the interesting part of Sarang’s story is how ordinary the machinery has become. Two zoos on opposite sides of the Pacific agreed in 2023 that one particular tiger should live somewhere else, and in 2026 she did.
Quick answers
- Where did the Columbus Zoo's new tiger come from?
Seoul Zoo in South Korea. Sarang arrived in Ohio on July 16, 2026, after a recommendation issued in 2023 under the WAZA Global Species Management Plan for Amur tigers.
- What is a Global Species Management Plan?
A breeding and transfer program that coordinates a species across regional zoo associations rather than within one country, so animals on different continents can be managed as one population.
- How many Amur tigers are left in the wild?
The Columbus Zoo puts the figure at roughly 500, from range-state monitoring. The IUCN Red List carries no separate assessment for the Amur subspecies; it assesses the tiger as a species as Endangered, in 2021, with a decreasing trend.
- Can visitors see Sarang?
Not immediately. She began a routine quarantine and acclimation period on arrival, and the zoo said it would announce viewing opportunities later.
