While many births are being announced all over RhinoWorld, deaths happens as well.

At Poznan, located on Warta River, in western Poland, Southern White Rhino Kiwu passed away during a middle August 2018 night. The cause of death is not known, but according to Official sources Kiwu wasn’t feeling well for months. He gradually lost appetite and became “dizzy”. Keepers suspect him to have a cancer, but even a death due to age related problems could not be excluded. This male, described as friendly and gentle, was 37 years old. He was born in Memphis (Tennesse, USA) on 3 March 1981 and was imported in Europe less than one year later. He lived almost 30 years in Erfurt (DE) and had 6 calves, 2 of them have calves on their own! He was then transferred in Poznan in 2013 where he has lived till his death. You can read more about him here.

Few days ago, on 14 December 2018, Silesian Zoological Garden (Polish: Śląski Ogród Zoologiczny), near Katowice, in Poland, announced the death of its elderly Southern White Rhino Faith. According to the official release this day was expected and feared, as you can read here. Faith was born around 1970 in South Africa and arrived in Europe two years later, together with other few orphan rhinos: her mum probably was poached. She had various calves during her life, three of them are alive at the moment. In 2001 when she had her last baby, the female Hope, she developed mastitis, but she patiently let her keepers milked her! Her last months were not easy, anyway. She had skin problems and decubit ulcers, but she was able to run in the rain a few weeks ago, together with her daughter Hope and the new female Nambi, whom she kind of “adopted”.

Both Kiwu and Faith will be greatly missed and warmly remembered by all of those who had the pleasure to work and stay with them.