SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Hannah, a 13-year-old white rhino, has given birth to a newborn calf, a rare zoo birth for the 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 the Chilean capital Santiago unveiled Silverio to the public on Tuesday as he took his first steps on giant feet after 12 days of medical care in confinement.
The zoo hailed his birth as a “major achievement” for conservationists worldwide, with only eight other southern white rhinos born in the past year.
The director of Buin Zoo explained that a recent string of failed rhino romances had dashed the hopes of conservationists who had tried to breed the species across the continent. But Hannah and Oliver—a pair of southern white rhinos shipped all the way from sub-Saharan Africa to Santiago a little over a decade ago—have hit it off, giving birth to three calves in this one zoo.
“There are several zoos in Latin America that have a pair of rhinos and have not been able to reproduce,” said zoo director Ignacio Idalsoaga. “We are contributing with a ninth calf to a species that only has 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 started reviving the species Through assisted reproduction and stem cell research.
The southern white rhino, a close relative of the northern rhino and a more common species, is classified as “near threatened” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the world’s foremost scientific authority on species status. There are just over 10,000 individual southern white rhinos left in the world, the vast majority in zoos.
That’s still a big improvement from the early 19th century, when the species was hunted to near oblivion. Intensive conservation efforts in recent decades have brought the southern white rhino back from the brink of extinction, a rare example of robust recovery in the face of danger.
But that could change, conservationists say, as hunters continue to kill rhinos for their horns and the mammals struggle to reproduce in captivity. The gestation period is 18 months, and it often takes more than one male to trigger reproduction.
Humans are the only predators for rhinos, the International Conservation Union reports, with hunters killing an estimated 1,000 rhinos a year. About 17 rhinos are born each year.