Lincoln Park Zoo to welcome newborn endangered rhino next year

A rhinoceros calf will be joining Lincoln Park Zoo next spring, as 20-year-old eastern black rhinoceros Kapuki is pregnant with her third child, the zoo said Monday.

The zoo currently has three rhinos at its Regenstein African Journey, which hosts more than two dozen species from Africa that include crocodiles and hippos.

The rhino calf will be Kapuki's first baby with 21-year-old male Utenzi. Staff members at the zoo confirmed the pregnancy by hormonal analysis of fecal samples.

“Kapuki is an experienced mother successfully raising King and Romeo, and we’re looking forward to seeing her in this maternal role again soon,” curator Cassie Kutilek said in a news release.

Pregnancies for eastern black rhinos last around 16 months, and females can only birth one calf at a time. Newborns can stand on their own soon after birth, but they still rely on their mother for food for one to two years.

Weighing around 85 pounds at birth, an eastern black rhino can grow to 12 feet long, 5 feet tall and 3,000 pounds in adulthood.

Eastern black rhinoceroses are a critically endangered species, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s classification. Due to poaching and habitat loss, their population dropped to about 2,000 in the 1990s.

But with conservation efforts in the past decades, there are now more than 5,000 eastern black rhinos.

Lincoln Park Zoo says Kapuki’s pregnancy is a part of the animal’s Species Survival Plan, a collaboration among institutions in the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. The zoo works with other AZA-accredited zoos to protect the eastern black rhinoceros’ population and habitats.

Kapuki’s first child King, born in 2013, now lives at the Oregon Zoo, while her second child Romeo, born in 2019, is at the Buffalo Zoo. Both moves were part of the animal’s survival plan to promote genetically diverse and self-sustaining populations.

“Every birth matters to this critically endangered species, and we’re proud to play a role in growing the eastern black rhinoceros population,” Kutilek said.

To celebrate Kapuki’s pregnancy and World Rhino Day, which was Monday, Lincoln Park Zoo is asking its patrons to donate through the zoo’s wish list or consider adopting a rhino symbolically.