Critically Endangered Rhinoceros Species Gives Birth At Lincoln Park Zoo

May 30, 2019 by apost team

The rare eastern black rhinoceros, which has been hunted almost to extinction, has been on the Red List of Threatened Species of the International Union for Conservation of Nature for quite some time now.

Luckily, a Chicago zoo is doing its part to help this endangered species get one step closer to getting off that list. 

The World Wide Fund for Nature, or WWF, reported that European settlers have relentlessly hunted the black rhinos to the point where they were almost extinct. After years of hunting and poaching, this magnificent animal was close to being eradicated from the face of the earth.

In the 1960s, it was estimated that a mere 70,000 rhinos were left in Africa. Unfortunately, that was only the beginning.

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Continued poaching in the 1970s and 1980s reduced the number of rhinos even further. By 1993, only 2,475 black rhinos were left on the planet.

This number caused considerable horror among the conservation community. After all, bringing back black rhinos after they had been poached and hunted for so long didn't seem like an easy task. 

However, significant conservation efforts were made to increase that number. Eventually, it did grow back to around 5,000. Still, this doesn’t mean that the rhinos are out of danger. They are still a very fragile species that unfortunately remains on the verge of becoming completely extinct.

We are glad to report that there is a black rhino at a Chicago zoo who is doing her part to save the species!

Kapuki is 13-years-old and lives in Lincoln Park Zoo. This proud mother was thrilled to give birth to a calf after being pregnant for over a year.

On May 19th, a new black rhino came into the world.

We are so happy that there is one more black rhino in the world! Viewers were able to watch the live birth of the rhino via Twitter. It has yet to be named.

The zoo kept everyone updated on Kapuki’s progress during her pregnancy, and then the birth, with the hashtag #rhinowatch.

What did you think of this story? We are sad that this magnificent creature is almost extinct, yet stories like this give us hope that better days might be ahead for the black rhino! Leave a comment and then pass this on!