Indian rhinos at SDWAP » San Diego Wild Animal Park

Indian rhinos at SDWAP
07-12-2007

For those rhino fans on the forum the SDWAP have now listed 21 Indian rhinos kepted at the park with one male at the SD zoo, oh boy

07-12-2007

The number sounds about right, however the 1 at the zoo recently moved to Kansas. Part of the whole elephant exhibit animal shuffle.

07-12-2007

This herd is going to be one huge herd with this sort of growth rate, maybe they might draw the line at 50?, oh boy.

15-12-2007

They sure have the facilities and space to house them. Great news!

15-12-2007

Since they only started with the two rhinos at the San Deigo zoo which never bred untill they were moved to the SDWAP they have done very well with them, they have resently imported three zoo bred males from Indian zoos, sending three females over there for a exchange, It has been interesting watching this herd grow over the years from such small beginings.

From the ISIS records it looks like "The Wilds" have 3 Males & 3 Females so they look like building a big breeding herd like the one in SDZ, hope so,

20-02-2008

The Indian rhino totals for San Diego Zoo+Animal Park must be treated with a certain degree of restraint. The bull at the Zoo was sent during 2007 to the Tangayika Wildlife Park in Kansas.

The breeding numbers at the Animal Park have not changed in a year. Despite the import of 3.0 bulls ex India and the ... number of realistically to be expected births. 13.8 thus does not reflect the true situation here.

20-02-2008

what are you saying? that the zoo has so far failed to breed the "new" ex-india bulls and thats a cause for concern?

if its only been a year its only been a year.....

20-02-2008

I think you're referring to the initial history of White Rhinos here. I beleive(but not 100% sure) that the Indian rhinos started out at the SWAP. Their first male was 'Lasai' bred at Basel, female(s) from India.

By rights, Whipsnade should potentially have bred as many if not more than San Diego, as they've been keeping them over an even longer period of time(50 years +) whereas in fact, the two recent calves there are only their 7th and 8th calves to be reared (provided they are) at Whipsnade.

20-02-2008

Jelle- is the Whipsnade/Basel bull 'Jaffna', the son of the original San Diego(ex Basel) bull 'Lasai' - or was there a generation (or two) in between?

21-02-2008

Jaffna was sired by the new male after Lasai died. The sire was a new founder from Hyderabad Zoo (I think I posted this also in the European Indian rhino thread) and the dam had only a small contribution from the original Basel line (her father was in fact Lasai, her mother a Guwahati Zoo born female).

Patrick,
I did not mean .. the rhinos ex Indian zoos ... breeding . I meant the entire set of rhinos not breeding in the year seems unbelievable to me. In any given year - whether or not the Wild Animal Park imports or exports individual rhinos - it will have 2 or more births. In a good year - like 2004 was - even 6 (allthough 2 of these ended in stillbirths or post partum deaths).

21-02-2008

jelle - oooooh i get ya.

i absolutely love indian rhinos. i love them like i love eating bacon after a big night out. i love them like i love clean bedsheets. i love them like i love girls in footless tights (okay so maybe thats a weird one, but hey, they look hot!).

anyhow. i love indian rhinos and thus was so disappointed when the female died at taronga. i'm hoping the SDWAP give sydney another, since i can't see them getting any form anyplace else.

i think they consider taronga/sandiego/westernplains/wild animal park "sister zoos" (no doubt a thankyou for all the koalas)

21-02-2008

[quote=Pertinax;38991]I think you're referring to the initial history of White Rhinos here. I beleive(but not 100% sure) that the Indian rhinos started out at the SWAP. Their first male was 'Lasai' bred at Basel, female(s) from India.

The two Indian rhinos did start out being on exhibit at the San Deigo zoo, "the pair" were not getting along to well in the small exhibit, but after sending them both to the SD WAP the breeding program kicked off.

21-02-2008

[quote=MARK;39083] I bow to your superior knowledge here... Its just as well they moved them. At Philadelphia and Milwaukee zoos they had Indian rhinos in small enclosures too and they ended up having to keep them permanently seperated as they became totally incompatable due to the small space. Sadly Milwaukee's pair were the very first two Indian rhinos born in captivity(Whipsnade & Basel) but they were never to breed.

21-02-2008

... so do I.. I fell in love with them when I was about 7 years old- I used to feed Mohan and Mohini, the very first pair at Whipsnade Zoo.

I think you've seen them wild? I've spent time in Kaziranga. Its fine being a tourist and seeing them from elephant back BUT if you go into the Park in a Jeep, they will chase you at high speed if they feel like it..they are not so lovely then, in fact, they become quite terrifying instead.....even years later I can still remember the noise they make as they start to get up speed with that pointed nose held high to catch your scent... a sort of sharp grunting- ughuuughhhughhhhh. It definately cooled my love affair for a while....

22-02-2008

First lines: You have us all drooling in no time .... Plueeseee!!!!

If I was the Species Coordinator here ... I would sent Dubbo all Europe's surplus overrep females ... no, kidding just the 1 and the other 2 could go back to Indian zoos to really move the breeding programme forward there. This in exchange for 1-2 very genetically valuable males from India (who are otherwise unrepresented outside India).