The National Zoo received two Asian elephants from a Dutch zoo

The National Zoo in Washington has received two new Asian elephants, mother Trong Nee and daughter Nee Lin, from Rotterdam Zoo in the Netherlands.

The two elephants, which arrived on Sunday night, join four other Asian elephants in the Elephant Trails exhibit. It is hoped that one of the two new elephants will be able to breed with Spike, the only male living here.

“We are proud of this international collaboration with the Smithsonian National Zoo and the Institute for Conservation Biology and the North American Breeding Program, which allows us to maintain a healthy reserve population of this endangered species in the Americas,” said Rotterdam Zoo Director Eric Zevenbergen.

The mother-daughter pair were flown from the Netherlands to nearby Belgium, then flown 3,700 miles across the Atlantic to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport before being flown another 238 miles to the National Zoo.

While the two elephants are settling in for the short term, their public debut as a pair is predicted to take place sometime in the first half of December.

“Trong Nhi and Nhi Linh are not only important social additions to our herd, but are also key to our efforts to support Asian elephant populations in North America and around the world,” Brandi Smith, Director of National Zoo and Conservation nature. Institute of Biology, the zoo said in a statement.