Submitted Photo Visitors to Minot’s Roosevelt Park Zoo now can see Akili the okapi, shown in this photo by Allison Suda.

Minot Roosevelt Park Zoo’s okapi is ready for visitors.

One of the first winter-friendly viewing spaces was designed for the okapi habitat. It’s too cold for the okapi to be outside, however, glass viewing allows for the closest interaction with the okapi even in the coldest months.

In addition to animal care priorities incorporated in all of the zoo’s habitats, the okapi indoor habitat was designed with two visitor-friendly applications in mind – it meets modern zoology practices for a visitor’s clear view, free from fence lines, and the winter-viewing area helps the zoo become the yearround facility it is striving toward.

Akili is a 17-year-old male okapi most recently from Florida where he played a key role in the conservation of okapi, an endangered species according to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Now retired from the conservation breeding program, the Minot zoo is the 27th Association of Zoos and Aquariums-accredited zoo in the country to have a habitat approved for okapi.

In Minot, Akili will be an ambassador promoting education and conservation for his species in the wild.

Okapi are solitary creatures native to the Congo and are most closely related to the giraffe. The okapi species is one of the largest mammals most recently documented by scientists. According to the IUCN Red List, “Okapi have been undergoing a decline since at least 1995 that is ongoing and projected to continue, in the face of severe, intensifying threats and lack of effective conservation action, which is hindered by the lack of security.”