Here we are with the third part of our “It’s Raining Baby Rhinos!” articles.
Australia Zoo (AU) welcomed more or less at the end of July 2019 a Southern White Rhino calf, named Kingston. He is the eight baby for mum Caballe, a female that arrived from the wild in 1999 at the age of around 4 years old. Mum and calf spent the very first weeks of Kingston’s life behind the scenes, but the new calf is revealing a very strong one with a great personality. One of his Keepers said about him that “on first meeting his sister Carrie, he had the courage to chase her, even though she’s at least twice his size!”. Yes, because the Facility had another calf in 2018, a female called Carrie from the other adult breeding female, Inyeti, who, unlike Caballe, has given birth only once before. The crash, which is also composed by another younger female, Kibibi, is now spending the days together and is viewable to pubblic. It is a great achievement that two breeding females became pregnant few mounths apart one from the other. It is not a simple task. We do really hope that even the third female, which is a first generation one, could start breeding in the near future, because there is urgent need of new breeding females in the small Australasian Southern White Rhino breeding program. We can be uite confident, since the Australia Zoo resident bull, Ganini, has prooved to be a very easygoing character, loved both by the public and by the Rhino ladies.
Another good news cames from eastern Spain where a healthy baby Indian Rhino was born at Terra Natura, in Benidorm. The calf, a female, was born on 2 September 2019 and she is only the second ever born in Spain. She is also the second calf for mum Shiwa, that gave birth to a male in 2012. According to Official sources, the bonding period is doing tremendously and the baby is thriving. At the moment, the little lady has not a name, yet. Her dad is an old bull called Nico, who is now 33 years old. At the end of 2018 a new bull, Tarun, was brought in, probably to take Nico’s place and help even the second female at the Facility, Nisha, to start breeding, but things went badly, since the young male died few months after the transfer because of an enteric pathology. It is not clear at the moment what will Nisha do, if stay or leave. At the moment, we are very happy for the new baby and hope for a great name for her.
Cotswold Wildlife Park and Gardens (UK) welcomed its seventh Southern White Rhino calf in the shape of a healthy female called Stella (which means “star” in Italian). Stella is the very first female White Rhino calf for Europe in 2019 and she is very important. She is also the very first female for mum Ruby and dad Monty, which welcomed other three male calves in the past, even if one did not survive the birth process. Stella was born inside on 7 September 2019. It was a bit of surprise for us that Ruby gave birth before Nancy, the second adult breeding female. Nancy had a female calf in 2017 that was unabled to stand up and feed by herself, so Belle, this is the calf’s name, was hand-reared and then, after many months, reintroduced to her mum. So, it was more likely for Nancy to became pregnant before Ruby, but, as we know, Maths in this kind of things is not always right!
Last but not the least there is a new Southern White Rhino in Europe: he was born at Zoo und Aqua Zoo Schmiding (AT) on 30 September to second time mom Nina and dad Brutus. The calf is a male and has not received a name yet: he is bonding with his mom in their stall. It is a great news for Schmiding since its last baby was born in 2014: the zoo has two other females and it is really important that they contribute to the breeding program.
