By CATHY ARONSON
Warning: put your head too far in the pen of this baby white rhinoceros and you may be gored by the horn of Caballe, his fiercely protective mother.
Caballe is normally gentle-natured but since the birth of her 50kg son on Sunday not even the father, Zambesi, is
allowed near.
Keeper Mark Bryant has been able to admire Hamilton Zoo's first baby rhino only from afar, despite a close relationship with the mother he calls Cabie.
"If you put your head through you'll be shish-kebabed," he warns.
Mum has every reason to be protective of the rare newcomer.
Only 5000 white rhinos remain in the wild because of poaching and loss of habitat.
The zoo got three white rhinos from Kruger National Park in South Africa in 1999.
The new infant, conceived 15 months ago, is growing 5kg a day.
By the time he is a year old he should weigh about a tonne.
He could eventually reach three tonnes, like his father.
His weight gain is helped along by half-hour feeds from his mother but in six months that will slow to every couple of hours and a snack of hay.
Yesterday, the newborn's hide was its natural slate-grey colour.
It will become permanently muddy when he meets the public in a month.
The rhinos are not white, as their name suggests. They gained their title from a poor translation of the Afrikaans word "wijde", meaning wide or broad to describe the rhino's mouth.
A contest is being organised to name the newcomer.
