US-born rhino heads home to help save his species
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A SUMATRAN rhino born in the United States ate leaves and wallowed in mud at an Indonesian sanctuary yesterday as the US formally handed over the animal in hopes he will have offspring and help save his critically endangered species from extinction.
The 8-year-old rhino is now in quarantine at Way Kambas National Park after traveling more than 16,000 kilometers from a zoo in Cincinnati, Ohio, to the Indonesian capital of Jakarta.
US consular official Robert Ewing delivered the 816-kilogram beast to Tachrir Fathoni, director general for Conservation of Natural Resources at Indonesia’s environment ministry, in a ceremony at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Lampung province.
“Thank you so much for the warm kindness (of the American people) for allowing the return of the one and only (Sumatran) rhino in the US,” Fathoni said.
An estimated 100 Sumatran rhinos, also known as the “hairy rhino,” remain in the world and nine are in captivity.
The sanctuary has five rhinos in an intensive research and breeding program aimed at increasing the wild rhino population on Sumatra island.
Harapan, or “hope” in Indonesia, who lived at Cincinnati Zoo and for nearly two years, was the last Sumatran rhino in the Western Hemisphere.
It is hoped he can mate with one or more of the three females at Way Kambas.
One of them, Ratu, a 12-year-old born in the wild, is pregnant with a calf expected in May. Her first calf, born in 2012, was the first Sumatran rhino born in an Asian breeding facility in more than 140 years.
The father of both of Ratu’s calves is Harapan’s brother, Andalas, who was returned to Indonesia in 2007. Their sister, Suci, died from illness last year at Cincinnati Zoo.
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