Ramat Gan, Israel (special) -- Once again, the Tel Aviv-Ramat Gan Zoological Center can boast of being the home of Shimon the peres. And it is also home to the intended mother of his children, Sonia the peres. 

In Hebrew "peres" means "bearded vulture" and zoo officials have named the two birds after Israel's former prime minister and his wife. They even had a ceremony earlier this year at which Dr. Yonatan Peres, a veterinarian, happily represented his parents. 

Yehuda Bar, the director of the Tel Aviv-Ramat Gan Zoological Center, asked Yoni--as the son is nicknamed--to supply the zoo with the names of his siblings, just in case there are little peres hatchlings to name. Yoni's older sister is named Zvia and his younger brother is Nehemia.

Last year, after its intended mate had died, the peres that was known as "Shimon" was shipped from the Ramat Gan Zoological Center to the San Diego Zoo to be paired with a female at that facility. Although the San Diego Zoo names its pandas and some other large animals, officials there declined to name the female Sonia, explaining it is not its custom to name birds. 

There is a center in Vienna, Austria, which coordinates the placement of pereses throughout the world in an attempt to increase the worldwide population of the bird of prey, also known as a Eurasian lammergeier. The center was responsible for moving the first "Shimon" to the San Diego Zoo and also was instrumental in the process by which the Tel Aviv-Ramat Gan Zoological Center received its second Shimon and its Sonia.

The zoo in Astana, Kazahkstan, had pereses to share, which it agreed to trade for two Thompson Gazelles and two gnus. The center in Vienna decided that Tel Aviv-Ramat Gan should keep the female from Kasakhstan, but should exchange the male for one that was hatched in a zoo in Hanover, Germany. In such a manner, the gene pools of birds from Kazakhstan could be mixed with those from Europe.

The male now known as Shimon is one year old, whereas the female known as Sonia is two years old. According to Ohat Hatzofe, the biologist who supervises the birds of prey breeding program throughout Israel, the two pereses are not likely to have offspring for several years. Normally, he said, "they can start at the age of five years old" although "they can start playing with nesting material even earlier, even as human kids do, imitating. But breeding is usually not before five years and sometimes not until 8 years old."

While Shimon and Sonia are the only couple of pereses currently in Israel, Hatzofe said in the future it is hoped more pereses will be obtained either through similar trades or the breeding process.

The peres once could be found in Israel's Negev, but it has since vanished from that country. In 1945, Shimon Persky--a staff member for David Ben Gurion--discovered a nest of pereses while participating in an expedition to map the Negev Desert. Zoologist Heinrich Mendelson, who also was on that expedition, recognized the bird. Other members of the expedition told Persky that "Peres" was a far more Hebrew-sounding name than "Persky," and so the future prime minister changed his name to Shimon Peres.

In naming pereses after the family of the former prime minister, zoos simply are helping Shimon Peres to return a favor to the birds.