A white rhino is born in a Chilean zoo, boosting the near-endangered species

Santiago, Chile — Hannah, a 13-year-old white rhino, has given birth to a newborn calf in a rare zoo birth for a near-endangered species.

The arrival of the male calf, named Silverio, two weeks ago marked the third time a white rhino has been born in South America. The Buin Zoo in Santiago, Chile’s capital, introduced Silverio to the public on Tuesday as he took his first giant steps after 12 days of medical care in confinement.

The zoo hailed his birth as a “great achievement” for conservationists around the world. Over the past year, only eight more southern white rhinos were born.

The director of Buin Zoo explained that a recent series of failed rhino romances had dashed the hopes of conservationists trying to breed the species across the continent. But Hannah and Oliver, a pair of southern white rhinos sent to Santiago from sub-Saharan Africa a little over a decade ago, hit it off and produced three calves at this zoo.

“There are several zoos in Latin America that have a pair of rhinos and they failed to reproduce,” said zoo director Ignacio Idalsoaga. “We are contributing a ninth calf to a species that has only a few left in the wild.”

A team of veterinarians closely monitoring Silverio declared him healthy on Tuesday.

The success story comes as fewer and fewer white rhinos roam the African plains. Northern white rhinos are effectively extinct, although the international scientific community has the species began to revive through Assisted reproduction and stem cell research.

Southern white rhinos, close cousins ​​to the north and a more common species, have been classified as “near endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the world’s leading scientific authority on the status of the species. There are just over 10,000 southern white rhinos left in the world, the vast majority of them in zoos.

This is still a major improvement over the early 19th century, when the species was hunted to near oblivion. Intense conservation efforts in recent decades have brought southern white rhinos back from the brink of extinction, a rare example of robust recovery from danger.

But that could change, conservationists say, as hunters continue to kill rhinos for their horns and the mammals may have difficulty reproducing in captivity, with a gestation period of 18 months and more than one male often needed to stimulate reproduction. .

Humans are the only predators of rhinos, reports the International Conservation Union, and hunters are estimated to kill about 1,000 rhinos a year. It is said that approximately 17 rhinos are born every year.