But Saturday's VIPs were eight ploughshare tortoises flown in from Hong Kong in padded crates. Among them is a female of breeding age, which Eric Goode and his associates at the nonprofit Turtle Conservancy's Behler Chelonian Center hope to mate with the only male ploughshare tortoise of breeding age in North America.

"That male, which is en route from a zoo in Texas, hasn't seen a female ploughshare tortoise of breeding age in more than 25 years," Goode said as he marveled at the new arrivals in a quarantined pen. "We're hoping for the best. These creatures have seen nothing but bad luck, corruption and greed in captivity."

Some would call that an understatement. With fewer than 300 left in the wilds of Madagascar, the ploughshare tortoise holds the dubious distinction of being the rarest tortoise on Earth. They are heavily targeted by global animal traffickers, and the high-domed creatures fetch tens of thousands of dollars on the Asian black market, conservationists say.

Until recently, attempts to breed the ploughshare tortoise outside of Madagascar failed miserably. In the early 1980s, a male died shortly after zoo workers in Honolulu used an electric device to procure semen from the animal. A female that it was supposed to have mated with had her ovaries removed during a botched operation.