Once known as the awkward rhino, Stormy fathers baby
raleigh — The zookeepers just didn’t think Stormy the male rhinoceros had it in him. Now, they owe him an apology.
Stormy had often tried to breed with the four female rhinos at the North Carolina Zoo, but the zookeepers had never seen him succeed. So colour them surprised when Linda turned up pregnant, then gave birth July 2 to a rare southern white rhinoceros.
“Stormy was waiting until we were gone until he actually turned on the charm,” said Guy Lichty, the outgoing curator of mammals at the zoo in Asheboro. “The keepers are apologising to him for doubting him.” The birth of the as-yetunnamed female is a special gift for Lichty, who arrived at the zoo 25 years ago with the goal of having a rhino born there. He’s leaving the zoo on Sunday, taking his accrued time off before he officially retires this fall. The calf weighed about 36 to 41 kilograms and will be on public view as soon as possible. Zookeepers expect her to gain 45 kilograms a month in the first year.
The International Rhino Foundation estimates that about 20,000 Southern white rhinos survive in the wild. The northern white rhino has been declared extinct, although researchers said earlier this week that they’ve succeeded in creating embryos using frozen northern white rhino sperm and eggs from a southern white rhino.
The North Carolina Zoo got Stormy in 2014 from a facility where he had only lived with his brother and with no other females so the keepers knew from the start that his breeding skills might be a tad awkward — and they were.
“We saw lots of foreplay and breeding behavior, but his actual mechanics were not correct,” Lichty said. About two weeks ago, Lichty got a daily report that said a female rhino named Linda showed physical signs of a possible puregnancy. Zookeepers confirmed the pregnancy with a blood test. —