It’s a girl! 100-plus pound baby rhino born at Busch Gardens

100-plus pound baby rhino born at Busch Gardens

Busch Gardens Tampa Bay welcomed a new baby white rhinoceros on July 12, 2010.

Zohari, which in Swahili means one who is late, is the first calf for Kisiri, and the fifth for father Tambo.

Weighing about 100 pounds at birth, Zohari was born in the night quarters adjacent to the 26-acre white rhino habitat on Busch Gardens' Serengeti Plain.

White rhinos are a threatened species. Threats to the species include hunting, poaching and loss of habitat.

Busch Gardens' white rhinos are managed as part of the American Zoological and Aquarium Association's (AZA) Species Survival Plan (SSP). The plan was created to ensure genetic diversification among threatened and endangered animals in zoological facilities. Zohari's birth brings the total white and black rhino population at the adventure park to 13.

Tambo and two female white rhino were airlifted from Kruger National Park in South Africa in 2001 through the efforts of the International Rhino Foundation (IRF), a non-profit organization dedicated to the protection of rhinos. According to the IRF, just over 14,530 white rhinos remain in the wild, and fewer than 170 live in zoological facilities across North America.

The SeaWorld & Busch Gardens Conservation Fund is actively working with groups in the wild to save endangered and threatened species, including white rhinos. The non-profit, private charitable foundation is committed to supporting wildlife and habitat conservation, research, education and animal rescue programs worldwide. Since its inception in 2003, the Fund has donated more than $7 million to more than 500 projects around the world.