Cotswold Wildlife Park has welcomed a new white rhino calf, the ninth to be born at the Burford park, but this time there's a royal twist!
Because this year also marks The Queen's Platinum Jubilee, keepers at the animal attraction chose a royal name for their new arrival - Queenie.
Managing director Reggie Heyworth, explained: We feel very lucky to have another baby female rhino, which is our fifth female baby in a row.
"All the rhinos here are named after very special people and I think everyone agrees that 2022 will always be special because of Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee.
"I thought it might be a bit presumptuous to call our new baby Elizabeth, so I have christened her Queenie instead. I think it is a perfect name for a young lady rhino!"
The Queen's Grandson, Prince William, is Royal Patron of UK based conservation charity Tusk Trust, which Cotswold Wildlife Park supports and works closely with to protect Africa’s many threatened species.
Reggie is a Tusk Trust Ambassador and ran the 2021 London Marathon in aid of the charity. For more information about Tusk Trust, please visit www.tusk.org.
Queenie's parents, Monty and Nancy, are fifteen years old and she is their fifth calf together.
In 2009, Nancy, along with another female called Ruby, made the eleven thousand kilometre journey from Mafunyane Game Farm in South Africa to the UK to join young male Monty at their new Oxfordshire home.
Females only reproduce every two-and-a-half to five years, so the window of opportunity for successful reproduction is limited. After a gestation period of sixteen to eighteen months, a single calf is born. Weighing approximately 6-7kg at birth, newborns put on roughly 1.5 – 3kg a day in weight.
They were once the rarest of any rhino species and were on the verge of extinction in the early 1900s, when it was believed only twenty to fifty animals remained in their native African homeland.
Thanks to sustained protection, they are now the most common of the five specie. Three – the Black, Javan and Sumatran – are critically endangered.
The Sumatran Rhino is now presumed extinct in the wild in Malaysia according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Visitors can see the baby daily from 10am in the solar-powered Rhino House or the large rhino paddock overlooking the Manor House.
For more information on Cotswold Wildlife Park visit its website here.
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