A male southern white rhinoceros calf named Orion was born at Lion Country Safari on March 3, 2024, joining one of the largest rhino herds in the country.
Orion and his mother, Bloom, spent their first weeks bonding in a maternity area, and are visible to guests from their cars in the Hwange National Park section of the safari.
A thousand animals to twenty thousand
The southern white rhino nearly disappeared. In the 1970s fewer than 1,000 were left on the planet. Multi-national breeding and protection work has brought the number to an estimated 20,000 today, which makes every birth part of a still-unfinished recovery.
The Palm Beach County park has worked on southern white rhino conservation for years and contributes to the White Rhinoceros Species Survival Plan, the national program run through the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.
How fast a rhino grows
Rhino mothers carry a single calf, born at somewhere between 88 and 132 pounds. Orion is expected to put on three to four pounds a day on his mother’s milk, roughly 1,000 pounds a year for his first three years. Calves nurse for close to two years.
Of the five rhino species, white, black, Indian, Sumatran and Javan, the white rhino is the most numerous. All five are in trouble, and poaching is the main reason.
