National Zoo and Aquarium welcomes a 'cheeky' baby zebra to its herd as part of a successful breeding program

The foal won’t be named or have its sex confirmed for at least a few weeks. (ABC News: Mark Moore)

Canberra zoo’s newest member, a baby zebra, has become the 27th to be born as part of their captive breeding program.

The foal, whose sex isn’t yet known and who hasn’t had a name chosen, was born earlier this week.

The Canberra Zoo & Aquarium said it was already doing “zoomies” around the yard, and is the second foal to be born to mum Kiva.

Zookeepers will have to wait a few weeks before they can get close enough to check up on the animal, weigh it and find out its sex due to its mum’s protective instincts.

They estimate the foal weighs around 40 kilograms.

Zookeeper Olivia Ware said staff had first noticed the new arrival early on Wednesday morning, but it’s believed the baby was born the night before.

“I looked over at mum and thought ‘oh, she looks different’. She has too many … oh my gosh, too many legs,” she said.

Ms Ware said both mum and baby were doing well.

“She’s keeping away from the rest of the herd and doing all the things she should be doing,” she said.

“We’re seeing baby drink and having naps and doing zoomies.”

Ms Ware said the new arrival was a “bit cheeky” and was brave enough to be running away from mum.

“This foal is more than happy to go annoy its big brothers and dad which is funny to watch,” she said.

As to whether the foal is black with white stripes or white with black stripes, Ms Ware said that was for the public to decide.

Baby will be named soon 

It will be a few weeks before zookeepers can get close enough to the baby to find out its sex.

That also means a few weeks before it will have a name, as zookeepers like to see what its personality is like.

“We like to see the personality of the foal and then get a name from that,” Ms Ware said.

Zoo is part of multiple breeding programs 

Successful births are nothing new for the National Zoo and Aquarium, which is part of a network of internationally accredited breeding programs, including that of the Australia-wide plain zebra.

Zebras have a long gestation period of about a year, Ms Ware said, but for the last little while, a new baby has been born to the herd every six months or so.

Some of the animals born in Canberra will eventually go on to travel around the country and pair up with other animals.

Some of those are for critically-endangered species like black and white rough lemurs and cotton top tamarins.

“Being able to be part of that and breed new offspring is fantastic,” Ms Ware said.

“We can add to the insurance population that is held in captivity and continue that species.”

While plain zebras aren’t endangered in the wild, Ms Ware said zoos were working towards becoming “insurance populations” for animals.

“Even if they are not endangered, we don’t know what will come in the future,” she explained.

“If something happens in the wild, the eventual goal would be to release them.”

Zoo veterinarian Joanne Johnson said despite zebras not being endangered, they were facing challenges.

“The big ones for these guys are definitely habitat loss and over-hunting,” she explained.

“With urbanisation … these guys need a lot of space and so when fences are put up and roads are built and those kind of things, it impacts the way they can move across and their natural habitat.”