After months of no rhino birth recorded we are now very happy to report a lot of them happening all over RhinoWorld.
As many of you already know, the very first Californian Southern White Rhino conceived through Artificial Insemination procedure was born at Nikita Kahn Rhino Rescue Center on 28 July 2019. He is a male and a according to official sources, he’s thriving and he was named Edward. He is the first surviving calf for mom Victoria, who was brought from South Africa in 2015. She is showing a very good maternal behavior. We’d like to recall that Victoria had indeed another male calf conceived naturally in the wild that unfortunately did not survived after the birth in November 2016. Edward’s dad is bull Maoto, on experienced male that sired many calves in the San Diego Safari Park. Since Victoria’s reproductive success she has been chosen to be a surrogate mother for a Northern White Rhino embryo in America.
Still in America, a private facility named White Oak, located in Florida, has announced that two baby Southern White Rhinos girls were born in the span of 15 days: the first one on 12 July and the second one around 26 July. Unfortunately it is not known who are the parents of both girls (since White Oak rarely shares information), the only cited fact is that they represent “new genetics” in the North American White Rhino meta-population. We presume that both girls are from wild parents brought to the zoo a few years ago from South Africa. We are of course joyful for both calves to be females, but we’d like to remember that it would be important for an healthy world rhino population to have all potential breeding females starting having calves in the near future to avoid being dependent on rhino importations. There were a lot of them in the past years while there are still many local females in reproductive ages of good genetic value that are not set in condition to have calves. Something in the management condition must be changed.
At the very end of August San Diego Safari Park (California, USA) made public that an Indian Rhino calf was roaming the main enclosure. It is a girl called Anusha that was born on 30 July to experienced mother Alta. After spending nearly one month in a boma, a sort of paddock behind the scenes, the pair has now joined the other six residing Indian Rhinos. According to our sources, Anusha is the fourth calf for mom Alta. Anusha’s dad should be the residing male Indian Rhino Bhopu. Last year Bhopu has sired two other calves: a female called Carole and a male called Tio. Alta’s very first calf, called Akuti, has given birth for the very first time this year: so curiously Alta in 2019 became mother and grandmother!
Poker for Europe: for male rhinos born in a row! This time is a Southern White Rhino in Arnhem (NL): he was born on 15 August 2019 and has been named Diederik. We are absolutely happy because this is the second surviving calf for mom Izala: she was transferred to Arnhem after almost 10 years spent in the maternal company, a condition that precluded her from breeding. Izala’s transfer has coincided with her reproductive reboot and in January 2016 she had her very first calf: unfortunately this one did not survive, but she had two more in 3 years and half. Diederik’s elder sister called Wiesje is still at the zoo, as far as we know, but it’s likely that she will be moved soon. Gilou, the residing bull rhino, is again the new calf’s dad.
