A baby white rhino was born this week at the Toronto Zoo.
Zoo officials say a rhino named “Sabi” gave birth to a healthy calf Thursday morning around 8 a.m. This is the very first calf of this 14-year-old mother rhino.
The zoo says “Sabi” arrived in Toronto in 2012 and her long breeding cycles initially presented a challenge for conception.
Zoo staff changed “Sabi’s” daily care and diet, and her behavior suggests her hormonal cycles shifted to the usual 30-day length in the spring of last year.
Officials say that the meetings between “Sabi” and the male white rhino “Tom”, which began in the summer of 2022, have therefore borne fruit. The gestation period of white rhinos is approximately 17 months.
White rhinos in the wild are listed as “near threatened” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species.
There are fewer than 16,000 left in the wild, and their numbers are dwindling due to habitat loss and continued increases in poaching for their horns.
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