Three more baby Southern White Rhinos saw the light of the day between January and February 2020, which are revealing themselves as very fluorishing months in terms of births!
In cronological order, the first one to be announced was Elna, a female Southern White Rhino born at Lion Country Safari, in Florida, U.S.A., at the very end of January, the 30th. Elna, whose name means “beloved” in Afrikaans, is the 5th calf for mum Bloom, 2o years old, and only the second for dad Chitabe, 7 years old, that welcomed his very first son, Bash, in 2019.
On 10 February, a Southern White Rhino boy was welcomed in Dublin (Ireland): mum Ashanti and dad Chaka had their 7th calf together. Their last one, 3 years old Zuko, was transferred preventively last year in the UK, in order to make room for his new brother or sister-to-be.
And only few hours ago, Veszprémi Allatkert (HU) announced the birth of a female Southern White Rhino, born to third-time mum Rebeca (that gave birth last time 12 years ago!), 20 years ago, and first-time dad Rafiki, 15 years old. The little lady, a very welcomed one since Europe produces more male than female calves, was born on 14 February 2020, on Valentine’s Day. Will her name be Valentine’s related?
Although we are absolutely over the moon for this three more bundles of joy and proud, we can’t highlight some important issues related to this new births.
Both Lion Country Safari and Dublin have a very large herd of Southern White Rhinos, with a potential than more than just one breeding female. Unfortunately in Lion Country Safari, for more than 12 years, Bloom has been the only Rhino lady to have calves (all females!). Just last year, her younger adult daughter, Anna, broke the record, and gave birth for the first time to the previously mentioned Bash. Surely, the arrival of Chitabe, the new breeding bull, from Disney’s Animal Kingdom (Florida, USA) helped modifing the equilibrium in the crash, but it is undenyable that Bloom is probably a dominant female that could be suppressing the other ones from regularly cycling and conceiving.
The same situation seems to be going on in Dublin: even if there are at least two other potential breeding females in the crash, only Ashanti is calving on a quite regularly basis.
It is really auspicable that all (or at least almost all) the potential breeding Southern White Rhino females produce calves for the health of a self-sustaining metapopulation. We do hope that more measures could be adopted through this objective: for example, separing the dominant females from the other for a quite long period of time, sufficient enough to let the other have a regular cycle, accept the male and conceive calves. If this is not sufficient, more drastic measures should be adopted, such as the transfer of the female/females among other Facility.
However, about Veszprémi Allatkert we are thrilled! The baby is the very first for the Facility and arriv es after years of cohabitation between her parents. Rebeca gave birth twice before and her last calf was born in 2008. The fact that after 12 years Rebeca was able to have another calf is remarkable. This birth, moreover, confirmes Rafiki as a proven breeder: with 2 more adult females at the Facility we hope for more calves to come in the future. Nevertheless there is an important issue that we want to point out: one of the adult female is Rebeca’s previous daughter, Naruna, that has been living with her mom since her birth. She is mature enough to breed but she has never produced a calf: if it is not going to happen in 2-3 years she should be transferred to another facility.
Our intent is not to be controversial: we are very grateful for all the efforts made by the various facilities and the coordinators that manage the different rhino metapopulations that are giving back great results, but there’s still more that can be improved. We are absolutely sure that a lot of this changes will be done in the near future and will be really fruitful!
