Cuba zookeepers celebrate birth of rare baby white rhino

ALLETE

25/06/2022 24:52

HAVANA, June 24 (Reuters) - The zookeepers at Cuba's
National Zoo are especially proud of Ale, a pudgy, gray-brown
baby white rhinoceros born earlier this month on the outskirts
of capital Havana.
    For starters, he's cute. Baby rhinos look similar to adults,
but have a stub in place of the horn and thus, are more docile
in appearance.
    But the white rhino is also a threatened species, and zoos
the world across have been asked to reproduce them in captivity
in the hope of creating a gene bank that will help preserve the
species should it go extinct in the wild.
    "It is a great privilege for us to be able to contribute to
the rescue of a species as threatened as the white rhinoceros,"
said  Alexander Arango, a Cuban zoo specialist in exotic
wildlife, as he watched the newborn graze on a patch of grass
beside his mother, Katherine.
    Cuba, says Arango, now has the second largest population of
white rhinos of any zoo in Latin America - a total of 8 - thanks
to Ale and the birth of his sister, Mel, in 2019. Before that,
it had been nearly two decades since the previous birth.
    In a Caribbean island nation with limited resources and far
from Africa, the increasing success in reproduction is a point
of pride, the zookeepers told Reuters.
    White rhinos, among the largest land mammals, have suffered
in recent years as poaching has increased across their home
range, primarily across southern Africa. That has put more
pressure on zoos to maintain the species, the zookeepers said.
    Cuba's National Zoo is a favorite attraction for Cubans,
with 1,473 specimens of more than 120 species, including large
animals such as elephants, rhinos and giraffes.

 (Reporting by Reuters TV; writing by Dave Sherwood; Editing by
Sandra Maler)
 ((dave.sherwood@thomsonreuters.com;))