New hope: The newly-born Sumatran rhino calf standing next to its mother Delilah, a seven-year-old female rhino, in Lampung province. — AFP
A Sumatran rhino has been born in western Indonesia, officials said, a rare sanctuary birth for the critically endangered animal with only several dozen believed to be left in the world.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimate the population of Sumatran rhinos to number less than 80 on the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Borneo.
A female rhino named Delilah gave birth to a yet-to-be-named male calf weighing 25kg at Way Kambas National Park in Sumatra over the weekend, fathered by a rhino called Harapan.
It was the fifth calf born under a semi-wild breeding programme at the park, Indonesian Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar said yesterday.
The new addition to the Sumatran rhino herd at Way Kambas, which numbers 10, comes after another baby Sumatran rhino was born there in September.
Successful births are rare. A male rhino named Andatu, born in 2012 at Way Kambas, was the first Sumatran rhino birthed in an Indonesian sanctuary in more than 120 years.
Indonesia is also racing to save another critically endangered species, the Javan rhino, with fewer than 80 alive today. — AFP
