Why Cincinnati zoo is sending rare Sumatran rhino to Indonesia

“The opportunity for him to breed and contribute to his species survival exists only at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary”.

Harapan is a Sumatran rhino – the last one in the Western Hemisphere and one of just around 100 left in the whole world. Numbers of the two-horned descendants of Ice Age woolly rhinos have fallen by some 90 percent since the mid-1980s, when humans began to clear their Southeast Asia forest habitat and poachers started seeking their prized horns.

The zoo has already produced the first three born “hairy rhinos” in captivity in the modern times.

According to The New York Times, Harapan will join Andalas – who was also bred at the zoo and has been in Indonesia since 2007 – and his male offspring along with three females at the sanctuary.

“Despite the great personal sadness so many of us feel both about Harapan leaving and Cincinnati Zoo’s Sumatran rhino breeding program coming to an end, we need to focus on all we have accomplished, for there is much to celebrate”.

Harapan, a Sumatran rhino enters his Wildlife Canyon at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens Tuesday, August 25, 2015, in Cincinnati.

A rhino named Ratu and her then four-day-old calf Andatu at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Indonesia.

Roth stated last particulars and permits are nonetheless being labored out so the switch timetable is unsure.

Harapan now lives in the Cincinnati Zoo in Ohio, the place where he was born. Harapan is expected to leave the zoo in October. “The Cincinnati Zoo has had a profound, historic impact on the effort to save this species”. Some scientists just lately concluded that there are not any extra Sumatran rhinos dwelling within the wild in Malaysia.

Conservationists and government officials met in Singapore in 2013 for a Sumatran Rhino Crisis Summit to discuss increasing action to protect the species.

The officials of the environment ministry in South Africa reported an increase of more than 20 percent in rhino poaching. Rhino advocates said recently they believe the losses are even higher.

Rhino horns are most in demand in some Asian countries due to medicinal claims of treating cancer and hangovers.