Cougar Mountain Zoo 2009, Peter Rittler continued in the zoo's management. The zoo collection features 32 exhibits of animal habitats concentrating on endangered species such as tigers, lemurs, wolves, reindeer, cranes, wallabies, macaws, and cougars, among others. On June 16, 2007, the zoo acquired two male Bengal tiger cubs, a royal white and a golden, who were born eight weeks apart in a Florida tiger preserve. The zoo added an additional two cubs in 2009. A glass-walled tunnel called the "Tiger Tunnel" enables visitors to view tigers in close proximity. In 2011, a 370-pound (168 km) tiger was photographed holding his paw up
Phoenix Zoo animal husbandry and research projects for selected species that are in need of conservation efforts. In its first years, the zoo hosted a captive breeding program ("Operation Oryx") with the specific goal of reintroducing the almost extinct Arabian oryx to the wild. By the early 1990s this program was still one of only two programs (the other being the golden lion tamarin) to have gone through the full wilderness-zoo-wilderness sequence. Nine oryx had been caught or donated for the breeding program. However, two pairs were delayed, so the "World Herd" was started in Phoenix in 1963 with only five animals