Good news for those of you who feel just the opposite of joy when seeing an amazing exotic animal behind a fence at the zoo. The National Zoo sent out the news this week that they are releasing a male scimitar-horned oryx into the wild as part of an international conservation effort.

If you’re as confused about what an oryx is as we were, the Zoo tells us:

Oryx are a type of desert antelope that are mostly white with reddish-brown necks and marks on the face and a long, dark, tufted tail. They stand up to 4 feet and 6 inches tall at the shoulder, and both male and female oryx have curved horns that grow to be several feet long.

The animal used to have a healthy population in its native land of Africa, until hunters cut their numbers down to nearly nothing. The National Zoo’s oryx was living at the Conservation and Research Center in Front Royal, Va., and will join others sent from zoos around the world to a conservation center in Tunisia, in order to create a diverse gene pool.

The oryx will live together in a 20,000 acre fenced in area until they’re acclimated to the land, and then the fences will be dropped — which actually sounds a little terrifying. We wish our hometown oryx the best of luck… with the lions. If you’d like to see one of these guys in person, there are still two at the zoo in Woodley Park, and a handful of others at the Conservation Center.

Photo from the National Zoo’s website