A rhinoceros was born at Easter in the Dutch Burgers’ Zoo in Arnhem. The very healthy male owes his life to a sophisticated European breeding program.
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Sunday morning the rhino, which still has no name, was born in the Burger’s Zoo. It is the fourth young of a 17-year-old female rhinoceros. It is a broad-lipped rhinoceros, or the southern white rhinoceros: the largest and most social of the five rhino species.
The species is also the least endangered, with around 11,000 broad-lipped rhinoceroses living in the wild worldwide. That is not much, but much more than the number of northern white rhinos. There are only two of them: mother and daughter Najin and Fatu. They are guarded around the clock in a Kenyan nature park.
READ MORE. Last male died 2 years ago, but there is still hope: science must save the rhino species (+)
With the birth of the new rhino cub, the Dutch zoo is in the top five of most successful rhino breeders in Europe. Every year, between ten and fifteen animals are born in more than 80 European animal parks. The gestation period of a female is 17 months and the young remain with the mother for an average of three years. About a hundred years ago, the broad-lipped rhinoceros was almost extinct. Then only a few dozen animals were left in a region in South African KwaZulu-Natal. All broad-lipped rhinoceroses living today are descendants of these animals.
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