Dvůr Králové Zoo celebrates birth of two rare baby rhinos
Last week the Dvůr Králové Zoo announced the birth of two black rhinos – the latest success in its rhino breeding programme. The zoo which has devoted close to four decades trying to save the breed from extinction cooperates with a sanctuary in Tanzania where it returns rhinos to their natural habitat. I spoke about the project with Jan Stejskal, in situ project coordinator at Dvůr Králové Zoo, and first asked how exceptional it was to have two rhino calves born in captivity within the space of five days.
“On a world scale this is definitely exceptional as regards zoos, although it is of course natural in the wild. Although I have to say that last year two black rhinos were born in our zoo within the space of 17 hours. So it is not so exceptional for us. These were the 42nd and 43rd rhino babies for Dvůr Králové Zoo and it is probable that we are the only zoo in the world to have achieved such a high number of black rhino babies.”
To what do you ascribe this success?
“I would say that we have really experienced keepers and since the 70s when we first started keeping rhinos we have gained a great deal of experience. At the moment we have a herd of 17 black rhinos, which is more than most zoos have and I think this is one of the reasons why we are able to breed them successfully.”
You have a very successful breeding programme. When did it start and how does it work?
“It started in the 1970s when the director of the zoo was Josef Vagner. He undertook about eight large expeditions to Africa and he brought back about 3,000 animals. Some say these were the largest ever shipments of wild animals in history. And among those animals were black rhinos. Immediately after they arrived we established a breeding program. Of course, in the beginning we had to learn how to work with the animals, what is the best food for them, how to help them survive the winter and all these things, but all the problems were gradually resolved and we gained a lot of experience.”
So you have had 43 babies since then and are expecting a 44th in August I believe?
“We breed the Eastern Black Rhino of which there are some 900 animals left in the wild.”
“Yes, in September we are expecting our 44th black rhino baby.”
Why did you choose a breeding programme for rhinos in particular?
“Even back in the 1970s it was clear that rhinos were animals that would come to the brink of extinction fairly soon, and that is precisely how things developed. For forty years we have focussed on breeding the Eastern sub-species of the black rhino which is the most endangered one and we even tried breeding the Northern White Rhino which is a severely endangered subspecies of the white rhino –we are now down to three specimens of the Northern White Rhino and they all live in Kenya.”
“With the black rhino the situation is a bit better. Overall there are some 6,000 black rhinos left in the world –which means in Africa, but with the Eastern Black Rhino that we breed we are down to some 900 animals in the wild. And as regards the project – we not only keep and breed Eastern Black Rhinos but we are returning them to their former habitat in the hope of increasing the population there.”
Where do you return them to? And how does it work?
“We return them to Tanzania, the northern parts of Tanzania, and it is actually a perfect place for this program because the rhinos that we breed in our zoo were captured in Kenya close to the border with Tanzania and the national park Mkomazi where we now return them to. The program started in 1998 and we closely cooperate with Tony Fitzjohn, a legend among conservationists, who established the program in the late 1980s. In 1998 he brought the first rhinos from South Africa and then in 2009 three rhinos were brought to his sanctuary from our zoo –two males and one female – and just two years after the translocation the first baby was born to one of our rhinos which is a unique success one could say.”
You have had two babies born in the wild there, I understand?
“That’s true, there are two already, actually we could say three or maybe two and a half. I will explain. The first baby was born in 2011 to a couple that was brought from our zoo to Tanzania. The second baby was born in 2014 and it was named Tunu after the wife of the prime minister, and in Swahili the name means “very precious gift”. And now we come to the “half” – the male that was translocated from our zoo fathered a calf born in April that was born to a female from a zoo in Great Britain. That’s why we say that we have two and a half calves there.”
So clearly they are protected in this nature reserve. But how difficult is it for them to acclimatize to a life in the semi-wild, so to speak?
“The baby was named Tunu after the wife of the prime minister and in Swahili the name means “very precious gift”.”
“Yes, they live in a sanctuary, a fenced-off area that is very well protected that is about 40 to 50 square kilometres in size. And I would not say that the acclimatization process is difficult for them. It is actually interesting to see how quickly they recover their instincts and get used to the surrounding environment. They need to be fed in the beginning and we slowly phase- out the feed they get in the zoo and let them get accustomed to the natural feed that is around them. And it is interesting to see how quickly their instincts return. For example after the baby was born in 20011 and also the one in 2014 it was sometimes a problem for the rangers to find the female with the baby because they were hidden in the bush – and that is the same instinct that they would have in the wild.”
And what is the goal of your breeding program – are you cooperating with other zoos –and where would you like to see it lead?
“There are two breeding programmes that we are involved in –one is in European zoos and here we want to sustain a large population of black rhinos which would have a rate of reproduction of around five percent per year. Regarding our work in Tanzania we have to take into account the situation in the country. In the 1960s or 70s there were sixty to seventy thousand rhinos in the country. But by the mid 1990s the number was down to between 10 and 20. A huge slide -no longer in the thousands – just between ten and twenty. So now we are working in a country where we have about 100 to 150 rhinos and our main goal in Tanzania is to sustain the population and hopefully even to see it grow. At the end of June we will provide the Mkomazi park with one more female. She will be put in a crate and loaded on a truck to Leipzig and from Leipzig we will fly her to Kilimanjaro Airport and from there by truck to the Mkomazi sanctuary. It will be the fourth rhino translocated from our zoo to Mkomazi.”
As you mentioned, you also spearheaded or are spearheading an effort to save the white rhino. Is that a lost cause now or are you hoping that new technologies will help you perform a miracle?
“We are speaking about the Northern White Rhino of which there are only three left in the world. None of them is capable of natural reproduction. So what we are talking about here is some kind of rescue operation where the results are not guaranteed. If we want to save them what we need to do is to produce an embryo in vitro. There are basically two ways and neither has ever been undertaken before so with this project we are on the brink of current scientific knowledge. One way is to learn how to harvest oocytes from the last two living females of the Northern White Rhino and the other way is to utilize stem cell research in order to produce eggs and sperm. Both these ways are complicated but while there is any hope of saving them we will continue to try to do so.”
So you have not given up yet? There are still efforts to find a way….
“That’s right. We are cooperating with a large group of scientists – experts from Berlin, Italy, San Diego, from Japan and of course form Africa.”
What has been your most rewarding moment in this work – in the process of breeding and saving rhinos?
“It is difficult to find just one moment. Of course, it is beautiful when you see new-born babies, but for me the best moments are when I see rhinos in the wild or semi-wild. You see how satisfied they are and these are the moments that you believe that - as a breed - they have a future and that we will not lose them.
