Sumatran rhino to give birth in zoo

Sumatran rhino to give birth in zoo

CINCINNATI (AP): Seven-year-old Emi could become the first Sumatran rhinoceros in 108 years to give birth in captivity.

"The confirmed pregnancy at the Cincinnati Zoo is a milestone of epochal significance for the survival of this venerable species," said Tom Foose of the International Rhino Foundation. Zoo Director Ed Maruska announced Emi's pregnancy on Thursday. The last recorded pregnancy of a Sumatran rhino in captivity was at the Calcutta Zoo in 1889.

There are only 18 of the animals in captivity -- 15 in Asia and three in Cincinnati, including Emi, who is on loan from the Los Angeles Zoo, and Ipuh, the father. An estimated 200 to 400 live in the wilds of Myanmar, Malaysia, Kalimantan and Sumatra.

Emi's due date is in January or February 1999, after a 15- to 16-month gestation. Weight at birth could be 13 to 18 kilograms (30 to 40 pounds).

Sumatrans are small rhinos, 1.5 meters (5 feet) tall at the shoulder and weighing 725 to 900 kilograms (1,600 to 2,000 pounds). They are the only species of rhino with hair -- stiff, reddish-colored hair that is particularly dense along the back and on the ears. They have two short horns.

Experts say the breed's march toward extinction is accelerating. The population has declined 50 percent since 1987 because their rain-forest homes are being lost to logging, and their horns are treasured for their perceived medicinal properties, Maruska said.

Conservationists think that the species can be saved only through captive breeding. "Emi is the last hope," said Mike Dee, mammal curator at the Los Angeles Zoo.

Sumatran rhinos lead such solitary lives that they come together only when the female is in heat. Encounters at any other time end in vicious fights.

The problem facing the Cincinnati zoo was how to tell when the female was in heat. Staffers solved the problem by taking ultrasounds three to seven times a week since February to view Emi's ovaries. By seeing follicles grow and ovulate, they could plot the reproductive cycle.