Newborn Indian rhino wins hearts at Canada zoo
: His carers describe him as a “a healthy, bouncing baby boy”. The arrival of a newborn of Indian-origin in Toronto at the beginning of the New Year has certainly brought joy to the city.
The infant weighs in at approximately 63 kg but that’s a “good weight” for his species - the greater onehorned or Indian rhinoceros.
The birth of this male calf on January 4 marked the first birth at the Toronto Zoo in 2018. The mother and child are “both doing amazing”, according to the zoo’s curator of mammals Maria Franke.
“It’s a healthy, bouncing baby boy. We didn’t get our hands on it the first day because we wanted to make sure that the bond between mother and calf is very strong. But then we processed the baby a couple of days after birth and he’s approximately 63 kg,” she said.
The calf has yet to be named, and there may even be a contest for that. His mother is 13-year-old Ashakiran, called Asha by the zoo’s keepers. While Asha was born at Buffalo Zoo in New York State, the calf’s father Vishnu, 14, was born at Bronx Zoo in New York City. This is Asha’s second surviving calf, joining Nandu, who was born in 2016.
“Toronto Zoo is part of the North American Species Survival Plan. The whole purpose of that is we collectively work together and move animals around for breeding purposes so that we have a really healthy genetic population,” Franke said.