Brussels: A rare southern white rhino was born at a zoo in Belgium, boosting efforts to save the endangered species, the park said on Monday.
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“An adorable little male was born in the early morning of Monday… Madiba, the mother, and her baby are doing well,” Pairi Daiza zoo said in a statement.
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There are roughly 18,000 southern white rhinos in the wild but the subspecies is being exterminated by poachers at a rate of one every eight hours.
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Another species of rhino, the world’s second-largest land mammal, the northern white, is in even more danger with only two left in existence.
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The remaining northern white pair are both female, so they will die out unless their genes can be preserved or recovered and an artificial breeding programme begins.
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In July, a southern white calf was born through artificial insemination in San Diego, in what the zoo hailed as a step toward perfecting the technique.
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The Belgian zoo has another female, Elie, in gestation. Her birth is expected “by the end of this year”. Both are natural pregnancies, the zoo said.
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Elie has already had a calf, Sethemba, who was born in 2016 and has been transferred to a zoo in the Spanish city of Malaga as part of Europe’s captive breeding programme.
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