Bouncing Baby Rhino Arrives at Busch Gardens

Visitors to Tampa’s Busch Gardens may soon get to catch a glimpse of a rare white rhinoceros calf on the Serengeti Plain.

Kisiri, one of the park’s adult southern white rhinos, gave birth to her third calf on Oct. 16, the theme park announced. The baby and its mother are doing well, park officials report, and are currently being cared for behind the scenes by the park’s animal care team.

While official stats on Kisiri’s baby are not yet available, Busch Gardens says newborn white rhinos generally weigh a whopping 150 pounds. The critters can gain as much as 4 pounds a day for their first year of life. After that, rhinos can weigh in at as much as 5,000 pounds when fully grown. That beefy figures makes them the second largest land mammal, falling just behind elephants.

Southern white rhinos are considered near-threatened with just over 20,000 left in the wild, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources reports. That’s why the birth is part of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ Species Survival Plan. The SeaWorld & Busch Gardens Conservation Fund has also been actively involved with rhino conservation projects around the globe. Since its inception in 2003, the fund has donated more than $500,000 specifically to rhino conservation and more than $11 million to other conservation projects worldwide.

While Kisiri is thriving as a mother, the park reports new papa Tambo is no slouch either.

He “has been very attentive to, and gentle with, his previous calves and the zoological team expects him to behave similarly with this calf.”

Kisiri and the newborn are still being monitored in the birthing area at the park, but guests should see them both on the Serengeti Plain in the next few weeks.

To find out more about Busch Gardens, visit the park online.

Photo courtesy of Busch Gardens