The asian rhino Behan has given birth to a baby boy! He has been called Ajang as it means "enormous" in Nepalese! Baby greater one-horned rhino arrives just in time for autumn - News - ZSL Whipsnade Zoo - ZSL
Behan is no. 5 to give birth for this year. Excellent! Incidentally: any idea whether the other female is pregnant and when she is due?
WONDERFUL news, hehe. One would think that Port Lympne zoo would try and snap up this one when the time is right? @KB, Don't be to surprised if the other female is pregnant too.
Really great news for the EEP, although 3 indian rhino boys (Manas/Lisieux, Tarun/Tierpark Berlin and Ajang/Whipsnade) and only one indian rhino girl (Henna at Basel) were born this year, the 5th one was stillborn.
I guess if you guys in Europe get over run with Indian rhino babies we down under might be able to take a few off your hands, lol (I hope)
We'll swap ya for platypus, wombats, more echidnas, tazzie devils, bilbies and quolls Ahh, if only I were in a position to make such an offer
I would indeed say there is a window of opportunity vis a vis the Australian ARAZPA (as well as the Indian zoos) programme. Incidentally: which Australian / New Zealand (unlikely) zoos have put Indian rhinos within the masterplan (except for Taronga-Dubbo)? Within the EEP there is a rather welcome skewed sex ratio towards females and sure enough the EEP has a need for unrelated males. The high number of male births this year is thus not unwelcome. Besides, the EEP still has an - as yet - significant over-representation by the old Basel Zoo breeding lines. I suppose it has the attention of the EEP (and incidentally also international) studbook keeper fully. Unrelated bloodlines exist in the SSP (US/Canada region), the Indian Sub-continent (CZA/SAZAP region) as well as the area encompassed by S.E. Asia/Japan/Australia (the rather small population here I count as one for ease of reference). So, yes options available ... Back on topic here: 1) Any news on more cheetah pregnancies (now the first set of cubs from the N.E. African cheetah have been born)? 2) More significant changes due in the white rhino breeding group (a Whipsnade born non-breeding female was sent to Hilvarenbeek and an Erfurt female was integrated in the herd as well as the last 2 male calves sent out)? 3) A Masterplan ... (of sorts) available? 4) What area of the Park is now up for re-development (after the new and admittedly fine European area)?
@KB, Australia zoo seem to be the only other Aussie zoo which has shown an interest at this point but as to when?
The bilbies I can live without, but no devils, no deal Out of interest, how accessible is Whipsnade from London Zoo without a car? Is their a train-line, bus route? I don't know what the distance between the two is.
javan rhino, if your travelling from south you would go past london zoo to get to whipsnade, if from the north past whipsnade first so it might be worht you looking at train routes, be pointless to travel to london from the north to travel northbound to get to whipsnade, distance is around 45 mins by car. hope this helps a little
Ahh cool. As you might have seen in another thread I'm looking at doing different 'zoo weekends.' One idea is London and Whipsnade, another is Berlin and Tierpark, and the last is Madrid and a day by the pool ;p
A couple of short videos on Utube of the mother and new calf show them in the old yards-this is the first calf born since the new building was completed but perhaps there was concern about the safety of the baby and the deep indoor pools. Can anyone confirm whether the calf was born in the old house?
I don't know whether he was born in the old house, but when I went to visit they had a camera set up inside the old house stable nearest the elephants so that even if the Ajang is inside you can still see him on a big screen. Purely guessing, I'd have thought that means that he was born there as it would have been easy for the keepers to keep an eye on the birth without disturbing mum.
My guess is he was born and is living in the old house,for the reasons you mention and maybe also the safety factor too. In most European Indian rhino houses the indoor bath is in a seperate stall so a mother and newborn calf can be kept in a 'dry' stall- at Whipsnade all three show dens in the new house access the watermoat so they can't do that. I imagine they'll move them over when he's a few months old. I see their press dept have somehow got the mother's name down incorrectly- 'Behin' not 'Behan'.
@Pertinax, When this baby grows somewhat maybe you will get that long awaited photo of one of the rhinos using the indoor pool, lol. It's got to happen some day.
The calf follows what the mother does. If the mother(s) won't enter, the calf probably won't either. at least while its still young. But 'Gentle Lemur' did see the young female 'Asha' partly in, and we now know the Bull will/does go in properly. (This is his (Hugo's) first calf incidentally, the previous two were from Basel's Jaffna) Its ironic that those two females used to freely bathe in the Cotton Terrace moats at ZSL when they first arrived.
With the big success that Whipsnade in having breeding Indian rhinos these days it would appear they have become the European breeding centre for the species, I hope they will keep at least two or maybe more females on site in the future and mirror in a smaller way what has happened at the San Deigo wild animal park, I have followed the SD WAP herd over the years in which they started holding on the more females so there was almost aways a female which was pregnant. Whipsnade have the room, if they could upgrade the older rhino house or extend it somewhat they could make it happen.
