It is with the great sorrow that we made the announce of the death of Southern White Rhino lady Chris, that occurred at Augsburg Zoo (DE) in April 2020. A little paragraph in the official Zoo Augsburg website informs that Chris stopped eating abruptly, remaining in anorexia for several days. In order to find out the cause, the Rhino underwent General Anesthesia, but unfortunately didn’t survive. A postmortem exam revealed an important inflammation of the small intestine, with subsequent systemic toxicosis. What provoked the damage it has not been revealed, but it is known that Rhinos resembles domestic horses, which sometimes in unfortunate circumstances developed intestinal inflammation, called “colic”, that sometimes could lead to death.

Chris’s lost is a huge blow to the European Southern White Rhino breeding program: she was a young female, only 15 years old, imported from South Africa in 2008 – so her genes were not represented in the European meta-population – and a proven breeder: she gave birth only once to a daughter, Keeva, now in UK. We do really hope that Keeva could start breeding in the next 2-3 years.

In Augsburg remain bull Bantu, an old and non-reproductive female called Baby, and a Chris’s “contemporary”, Kibibi. The latter has shown less maternal attitude than Chris, with an only calf born few weeks prior than Keeva, that rejected at birth. Since 2016, in Augsburg no new pregnancies occurred, sadly.

We really want to thank our friend P. L. to write and inform us about this news.