Knowsley Safari have today announced an exciting new arrival for the New Year - a bouncing baby girl in the form of a seven stone endangered white rhino.
Credit: Knowsley Safari Park
Following a mild winter, the Safari's 21-year-old female white rhino Meri has welcomed her sixth calf - a daughter - to the park.
Soon a Facebook competition will be launched for fans to name the calf - the 11th to be born at Knowsley Safari in the last decade as part of their extensive breeding programme, managed in association with the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria's (EAZA) European Endangered Species Programme (EEP).
Rhino Keeper John Moss said: "We've been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the calf for 16 months - the average gestation period of a rhino. We're really enjoying monitoring her as she explores and interacts with the new surroundings, she's already so mischievous as she runs around her mum, copying her mannerisms."
Rhino Team Leader Jason Doherty added: "Meru is a great mother and has now had six calves here at the safari. We have a large 100 acre space here for the crash to grow that helps us keep up such a consistent breeding programme, which ranks us as one of the top white rhino breeding groups in Europe."
There are only 20,107 white rhinos left in the wild according to 2010 figures from IUCN, with the species being one of the most hunted animals in the world.
A total of 1,215 white rhinos were killed in 2014, and so as part of their conservation work, Knowsley Safari have helped to fund the important work done by the Lowveld Rhino Trust (LRT) with £30,000 donated so far via direct sponsorship from the Derby family, visitor donations and fundraising activities. The LRT are a conservation organisation, operating primarily in Zimbabwe to help reduce poaching and increase the chances of the long term survival of rhinos, one of Africa's 'big five' wild animals.
Tagged in Animals