Taiwanese rhino finds her match in Japan
Hsinchu – Emma, five years old, slim build with a gentle demeanour, is looking for love overseas. Hobbies include hanging with friends and studying Japanese. Seeks fellow rhino for companionship and mating.
It’s been a busy and exciting time at Taiwan’s Leofoo safari park, where zookeepers have been preparing to send one of their southern white rhinos over to Japan.
Part of an attempt to widen the gene pool of Asia’s captive-bred white rhinos, it is the first time Taiwan will send a rhino overseas to breed.
The safari park scoured its 23-strong herd to find a suitable candidate and settled on Emma, who ticked all the right boxes.
“Emma was chosen because of her mild personality ... and her smaller size also makes it easier to ship overseas,” Sean Wu, the park’s chief veterinarian and animal manager, said.
“She seldom get into fights with other rhinos or snatches other’s food.”
Visa and paperwork depending, Emma will soon travel to Japan’s Tobu Zoo in Saitama, where 10-year-old Moran has been lined up to be her first suitor.
To help her adapt to her new home, zookeepers have started using Japanese instructions for commands such as “come” and “no”.
“We have added Japanese commands in our daily animal training so that slowly when she arrives in Japan, she can more quickly adjust to the new language,” Wu added.
She has also been trained to get used to “outdoor ambient sounds”, such as aeroplane engines and trucks to prepare her for the journey.
Her trip originally set for this month has been postponed to April at the earliest due to Japan’s border restrictions imposed over the Covid-19 pandemic, the park said.
A vet and a zookeeper will fly from Taiwan two weeks in advance to undergo quarantine. They will stay in Japan for at least a week to ensure Emma adjusts to the new environment.
The southern white rhino – found in the wild across southern Africa – currently numbers less than 19 000, according to the animal conservation group Save the Rhino. They were nearly wiped out in last century but managed to recover thanks to conservation efforts.
Their northern cousins were not so lucky. Only two remain, both female, rendering the species functionally extinct. Other rhino species, such as the Javan rhino and Sumatran rhino, have less than 100 herds left.
Zoo breeding programmes played a crucial role in repopulating southern white rhino herds.
Leofoo safari park imported eight rhinos from Africa in 1979 and now has the most successful breeding programme in Asia with 23 animals in its herd.