Good news at Monarto with the birth of their first rhino calf. Another male, yes, but hopefully he won't be the first. The mother is Uhuru, their first white rhino, she was born at Singapore zoo May 26th 1996. the father is Satara and is a wild born from Kruger. With the white rhinos, ofthen the captive born won't breed so it is good that the calf is a second generation on his mothers side. Jason
rhino births May be they can do an animal swap in the future with Hamilton Zoos baby rhinos ( assuming that both zoos can breed a few more , and get a good male/female mix ) I remember when I was a kid I asked the Auckland Zoo about rhinos , and at that time , they were in the "too hard" basket for any NZ Zoo . Now Auckland and Hamilton zoos have white rhino ( I am not sure , but Orana Park may have them also ) It is so good to see new species on display that are also breeding ! Welcome to our forum , Mark .
white rhino in australasian zoos you'll be glad to know nigel that white rhino's are really starting to pick up in the region. according to ISIS, auckland have given up trying to breed their rhino's for the time being, after the nasty death by accidental poisoning of most of the zoo's females the zoo sent the remaining female to orana to breed there. auckland now only keep two male rhino. orana have a small breeding herd of five animals, hamilton also breed their herd of six. here in australia we have had recent births at dubbo (who have eight rhino), monarto with five, perth with four (and another due very soon) and werribee, who with nine rhino have just beaten dubbo to the title of the largest herd in the region. an additional two male white rhino are housed at the troubled mareeba wild animal park (which is still for sale) and hopefully the new buyer wil not fall out with ARAZPA like the last owner and integrate the animals into the regional program. unfortunately, despite the idea of keepig rhino in "herds" (they don't really live in herds, but are somewhat semi-social solitary animals), appearing to be the secret to stimulating pairs to breed, it seems that's all it does - stimulate ONE pair to breed. most recent second-time biths at all the zoos are the result of the same pair that bred the first time. maybe these dominant rhino put out pheromones that inhibit the desires or cycles of the other animals? if the programs are to be sucessful the zoo's will have to work out how to get the others to breed as well. an additional problem that seems to be common with both species of african rhino in australia is that most of the offspring born are males. though this could be entriely coincedental, maybe a dietry issue results in a higher likelihood of male births? who knows?
Further to the rhinos A black rhino was born at Dubbo on Valentines Day, making it their tenth birth - guess what - it was male! This is the fourth calf for mother, Kalungwazi and first calf for father Kwanzaa. The issue with regards the male only babies does seem to be related to diet. At first I thought it was iron (too much) but when I checked that was in relation to breeding at all. Western Plains are now considering running a program to introduce one of their young to the wild. Jason
black rhinos though i often whinge about zoo's bragging, yet not actually being that involved in reintroduction and other conservation efforts, i think with only one zoo holding black rhino, it would be better to expand the breeding program rather than worring abot re-introduction just yet. i suppose however a surplus male offspring (who say, already has brothers at the zoo) would be an ideal choice as he would have little opportunies to breed with the current population at dubbo. there is a valuable bull rhino at taronga, who was moved there as he seemed bullied by the other males at dubbo and was not breeding. if his desires really are hampered by the presence of other more dominant males, he's a good candidate for a move to another open range zoo, to be joined by a couple of newly-imported females. though i applaud dubbo for not splitting their rhino group amongst the other zoos all this time, maybe their program has gotten big enough to finally expand. dubbo's black rhinos are a purebred group of the southern subspecies, they should therefore adapt quite well to the slightly cooler climate of the more southern zoos.
Thats right Patrick, it would be good to have a second group of breeding black rhino in Austraila, In fact I hope we get a few pairs of Indian rhino going in this country at some sage in the furture. Indain rhino's breed well in zoo's and are a nice looking animal some of the larger males can be almost the same weight as a female Asian elephant, I have seen a few in zoo around the world they are huge. Mark
breeding rhinos From the information that I get from our zoos in NZ , they all seem to imply ( or actually say ) that breeding of rhinos in captivity is notoriously difficult . I wouldnt know for sure one way or the other ( I have never tried to breed them myself ) but it looks like either they are not really THAT hard to breed in the part of the world ,( unlike kakapo or platypus ) or we are having a good string of luck !! I wonder how well they cope with travel . If we could swap our younger bulls for some young females from a zoo in some other part of the world .... or is this a dream more than a feasible option ? I know that it is more difficult for NZ to obtain animals , given our biosecurity leglisation which is incredibly strict ( but for good reason ) but it would not be impossible . Even if we send surplus bulls to Dubbo/Monarto to be part of mixed African exhibits ( Aucklands white rhinos share an enclosure with springbok or similar frail looking antelope animal ) or even send them to Africa if there is any chance of them going to a rehabilitation centre where they are trained to live in rural Africa .....
rhinos i'm hardly supprised that many african ungulates (including rhinos) breed well in australia. i imagine the climate of say dubbo, would be a very near match for southeastern africa. similar rainfall, vegetaion and temperature no doubt can play a very big part in dictating a sucessful rhino breeding program. however, it seems that the zoo's still have a very long way to go - and i suspect it will have to get a lot more scientific and technical. there are still many problems to be weeded out - among them why only one pair is likely to breed, why so many males are born and some dietry issues that may prove related to both former problems. i'll be interested to see how the indian rhino program goes once dubbo finally source some additional animals. i suspect they will do even better than the african species as they don't seem so reliant on group stimuli.
Indian Rhino's My cousin worked at Toronto zoo in Canada for 8 years and had worked with The Indian Rhino's there, I have been there twice and toured behind the scenes and spoke to many of the keepers there, they said that the Indian Rhino's were easy to work with in the zoo, they have bred at least three there in resent years. I got some real nice photos of them and was luckly enough to get to feed them a heap of carrots. Mark
white rhinos at Hamilton The keeper at Hamilton zoo told me that the white rhinos there are fairly docile and they have no problems with them . Apparently it is the black rhinos that have a bad temperament ( in human terms of the phrase -- it is probably normal for the rhinos ) and will charge at anything that moves , including leaves being blown in the wind ..... and one of the Auckland rhinos was a bit of a wimp ! I am fascinated by them , as they havent been in NZ for that long .
indian rhino that sounds great MARK. i suspected that this particular species did better in a zoo environment than the african species - who seem to require a complex solitary, yet occasionally multi-social scene. i have had a facination for indian rhinos ever since i travelled way out of my way to a wildlife sanctuary in northeast india especially to see them. they have some amazing prehistoric qualities and to this day the rhino i saw there on elephant back is captured in an enlarged photo framed on the wall of my study. when i arrived home from india i was delighted to hear that taronga zoo had been given one as a gift from japan! though i have only seen photos of this particular rhino i am very excited at the prospect of a regional breeding program. the exhibit however (judging from what i have seen of sim's photos) though spacious, does not do it for me. i would have liked to see something a little more natural-looking, planted out with stands of tall elephant-grass that one so often enounters this species in when in the wild.
Indian Rhino's They are breeding very well at the San Diego wild animal park in the US, they keep 14 of them there which is the largest group in any zoo. When I was visiting zoo in the UK a few years ago one of the many zoo's i saw was Whipsnade zoo who have the best and largest group of Indain rhino, 1 male, 3 females in the UK, also one breeding pair of black rhino and around ten southern White rhinos. The best place to see Black rhinos' in any zoo i think would be at port Lympe who have about 26 of them, but no white or Black rhino. On a visit back in 1987 i was VERY LUCKY to see there pair of Sumartan Rhino which I think were the only ones in any zoo at that time, It was a long way to go to see these two, they were off public display at that time, I was more than thrilled when I got to see them in there new barn and even allowed to feed each of them and give them a good old sratch around ears which they seemed to really enjoy. They even had a heated mud wallow and pool inside the barn, the food room which was in one corner or the building was just chock a block with fresh fruit which was flown in every few days from places like the west Indies. They spared no expense on these animals and had every care possible, it's a shame they never bred. Mark
sumatran rhinos shame they never bred? they all died!! in the late 80's early 90's about 20 sumatran rhino were captured from the wild and sent to zoo's around the world from habitats that were earmarked for logging. these newly captured rhino were hoped to become the founder stock for a new captive breeding program. unfortunately, most of the rhino's (such as the ones at whipsnade) ended up living in barns in cold climates in britain and the USA. the program was a complete failure and after only a few years almost every animal had died. whilst one zoo (and i think it might have actually been whipsnade, now i think about it) made the selfless decision to repatriate their surviving animal to malaysia, the last american zoo's with living animals attempted a last ditch effort and the LA zoo's lone surviving male was sent to join a female at cincinnatti (an elderly female who still lives at the bronx zoo). it was, despite what i would have thought to be a poor decision given cincinnatti's freezing winters, a good decision - these guys are the only proven breeding pair of sumatran rhino's in the world! on the otherhand, the semi-wild breeding centers that were set up in sumatra, borneo and penninsular malaysia (a concept you would think would be ideal for the rhinos) cannot tout sucess either. the pennisular malaysia program ended ubruptly just a couple of years ago when all 5 animals died of what was claimed to be un-hygenic conditions. none of the animals in either the borneo or sumatran centers have ever bred, despite a decade of study. so who's doing what right/wrong? i dunno, but it seems very clear that these fragile animals found it very difficult to adapt to captivity in the US and europe. i have little doubt that climate (and moreso the restrictions that come with it - life indoors) played a major part. still the malaysian failure shows that the fragility of these animals even when housed in it's natural environment and just how little we know about them. maybe the animals have some perticular dietry needs that they satisfy in the wild but cannot be substituted easily for hay and fruit? who knows? i can only hope that in the future the cincinnatti zoo teaches all it's learnt from it's breeding pair to those facilities in asia that still have rhino's. from the photo's i have seen of these bornean /sumatran facilities they could do with some upgrading to protect the rhino's better from disease. they seem pretty typical of any SE asian zoo enclosure - hardly the place for one of the world's rarest animals.
Sumatran rhinos From what I hear the two off spring born at cincinnatti zoo are doing real well, the first born ( male ) went the to the LA zoo and the second born is still with her mum. It seemed the diet was a big factor in getting them to breed, they needed much more fiber than anyone first thought, also introducing the pair at the right time for breeding was more important than first thought, because the female wont release her egg untill she is pursured by a such a large area that it would be a waste of the females egg to be released untill she actally had found a male, I guess it makes a lot of sence now they know. Mark
When I went to Chester zoo on a members trip we got to stroke the female Rhino rosie. They feel really wierd.
Rosie was handraised at London. Interesting you were able to touch her, I thought that despite being handraised she was exceptionally nervous. When the inside rhino house was open to the public (which I'm not sure it is any more?) her area was completely screened with boarding like a stockade, as if to prevent people frightening her? Mind you, all black rhinos can be a bit 'jumpy' and are quite nervous. 'Rosie' certainly seems to have some sort of problem which means she hasn't bred at Chester. Do you know why?
She has been tamed now. She painted a picture to raise awareness for rhinos. They put paint on her lip and she smudged it onto the paper.
Yes, that's a new trend in zoos, getting elephants and rhinos and suchlike to daub paint around- maybe they sell the outcome too? Its a good way of raising awareness and funds etc. However, I'd like to see 'Rosie' contributing more directly by breeding too- her parents are not well represented in the population- though I know there is some problem which means that she hasn't done so far.
painting is a good way to raise some cash, mogo souldhollies first pic (shes a chimp) for over a grand, not a lot but all helps!
