Assiniboine Park Zoo taking in Calgary zoo animals

Winnipeg's Assiniboine Park Zoo will soon be home to five animals from the Calgary Zoo, which is cleaning up from last month's flooding.

Three cotton-top tamarins and two prehensile-tailed porcupines will be coming to Winnipeg in the next couple weeks, Assiniboine zoo officials announced Friday.

The Calgary Zoosaid earlier this week it'spermanently closing its South America buildingbecause it was hit hard when the Bow River overflowed last month.

As a result, a total of 34 animals are being relocated to other institutions in Canada, including the Winnipeg zoo.

Other facilities that are taking in animals from the Calgary Zoo are the Greater Vancouver Zoo, Safari Niagara, Riverview Zoo in Peterborough, Ont., andMagnetic Hill Zoo in Moncton, N.B.

"We're very pleased to offer our support and help the Calgary Zoo during this challenging time," Gary Lunsford, the Assiniboine Park Zoo's general curator and acting director of zoological operations, said in a release.

"In situations like this, it's important that the zoo community joins together and it's nice to see so many organizations doing just that."

Zoo visitors in Winnipeg won't get to see the new arrivals right away: officials say the animals will undergo a standard 30-day quarantine period before they meet the public around late August.