Rare baby rhino eager to face fans

By ANNE BESTON

A "precious child" born at Auckland Zoo is the latest addition to a worldwide conservation success story.

Waiting impatiently for the rain to stop yesterday so she could take her first steps outdoors, Keto - "precious child" in Swahili - is the first white rhino born at the zoo.

She is "a bit of a live wire," according to staff.

"She's been tearing around the place, so we're just waiting for the rain to stop before she goes on public display," said zoo spokeswoman Fiona Turner.

Keto has been kept inside with her mother, Mazithi, since the birth seven days ago. Mazithi's pregnancy was unenviably long - the gestation period for the white rhino is between 16 and 17 months.

Keto is just above knee height and weighs 30 to 35kg. She was not weighed at birth because Mazithi was "fairly aggressively protective," said Ms Turner.

The baby rhino will eat enough to add 3-4kg a day until she is fully grown; Mazithi weighs a formidable 1.8 tonnes.

It will take about two years for Keto's horn to grow to full size.

Mazithi, an 18-month-old calf and a male white rhino were part of a contingent of 12 of the rare animals destined for Australasian zoos from South Africa's Kruger National Park.

The white rhino is the world's second-largest land mammal after the elephant and is something of a victory for conservation.

At the end of the 19th century no more than 100 existed in southern Africa, most of them in the Umfolozi Game Reserve, in what is now the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa.

As Europeans moved into the interior of Africa from the Cape in the 17th to 19th centuries, the settlers found rhino easy prey and a plentiful meat supply.

A lucrative trade in rhino horn also contributed to near-extinction.

But today, following decades of intensive conservation, their numbers have risen to a healthy 8000-plus and prospects for their survival look good.

Rhino numbers and those of other large, southern African mammals have been boosted in recent years as cattle farmers have turned their ranges over to game.

South African farmers are finding eco-tourism is sometimes a more lucrative option than traditional agriculture.

In contrast to the success of the southern white rhino, the 15-20 northern white rhino left in Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo look doomed to extinction as that country's brutal civil war drags on.

Other rhino breeds, such as the smaller black rhino, found in Kenya and Tanzania, are also under serious threat.

Their numbers plunged from 65,000 in 1970 to around 2000 in the mid-1990s as a result of ruthless poaching for their prized horns.