PREVIEW

World's Rarest Ass Born At Chester Zoo. Conservationists at Chester Zoo are celebrating the birth of the world's rarest ass - an exceptionally rare onager foal. Related to the domestic donkey, the onager is an Asiatic wild ass, which lives in the semi-desert regions of Iran. The foal was born to mum Azita following a year-long pregnancy. Zookeepers have revealed the new arrival is male and have called him Jasper, a name with Persian origin that means 'bringer of treasure'. Similar wild asses were once found in abundance across the deserts of Mongolia, China and Iran, but now very few species remain and onagers only survive in the wild in two small, protected areas in Iran. They have suffered at the hands of illegal poaching, overgrazing, drought and disease passed from farm animals which has seen their numbers plummet by more than 50% in the last two decades alone, leaving just 600 in the wild today.