As many of you knows, there are 3 pregnancies announced by Zoos worldwide, recently. Here we are with a new article about all of them. Enjoy it!
The first pregnancy announced is from Austria: at Salzburg Zoo one of the three resident Southern White Rhino females is expecting her second calf. Tamu, 13 years old, the younger of the trio, underwent to an artificial insemination procedure in January this year, and, in September 2019 was announced that it was succesfull. She is expecting to give birth in late Spring or early Summer 2020. The procedure was performed succesfully only once before and it resulted in the birth of Tamu’s first calf in 2015. The Facility has, in fact, a resident bull, called Athos and his semen was used in both cases. It is not clear why the “natural” way is not possible in this Facility: some sources claims it is a matter of space, other that is a matter of “chemistry” between the male and the female. It is clear that something is not working in the “mating” direction between the crash, since even the other breeding female, Yeti, gave birth in 2015 following an artificial insemination and at the moment she is not expecting. The other female, Frederike, is unfortunately too old to conceive a calf. Anyway, this Zoo is one of the few that in Europe is having good success with the artificial procedure: this should be considered as a great achievement that must be used in all the other facility that there are breeding female and none of them is producing calves.
The second pregnancy is from Auckland Zoo (NZ): first time mom Jamila (7 years old) is expecting a calf in Spring/Summer 2020. She was first paired with Inkosi, one of the resident males, but the succesfull mating took place with Zambezi, Inkosi’s dad. Jamila’s pregnancy is a great news because she is one of the first “first-generation females” (it means that she is daughter of a wild female) that is confirmed to be expecting a calf. There are many others such as Kibibi and Savannah and we are hoping for them to become moms in the future. It is in fact really important for the Austral-Asian Southern White rhino breeding program that these “first-generation females” contribute to the genes pool: unfortunately as already said this meta-population has a good number of calf born in the year but the females that produce them are always the same.
The third one is from Denver Zoo (Colorado, USA): Indian rhino Tensing is expecting her first calf for 2020. This calf is again the result of an artificial insemination: the dad is male Jontu, who lives at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo (Nebraska, USA). He had a male calf this year with female Hellary. The year 2019 has seen a lot of artifical insemination procedures in the USA Indian rhino meta population hence meaning that this tecnique is becoming more and more precise. It could have great implications for the future because it can make the gene pool dynamic with the birth of calves from distant parents. Anyway it is our opinion that also the natural breeding behavior should be protected and, if Europe has something to learn from USA about artificial procedure, it goes both ways because in Europe the natural procedure is the only way of conceiving used in the Indian rhino population. We really hope that both continents will work together in the preservation of not only the Indian rhino but of all the species.
