A female eastern black rhino in Des Moines is expecting her first calf.
Six-year-old Ayana at the Blank Park Zoo will likely give birth in late October or early November. Black rhinos are usually grey in color and have a prehensile front lip which they use to grab twigs and leaves.
Blank Park’s Ryan Bickel says the zoo is very excited, since black rhinos are critically endangered and hunted in the wild for their horns.
"One of the reasons we have rhinos at zoos is sort of as an ark," says Bickel. "If the numbers get so low in the wild, we’re hoping to breed rhinos to keep them around for future generations."
Ayana and her mate Kiano were brought to Des Moines in hopes that they would conceive. The Association of Zoos and Aquariums tracks black rhino genetics and found the two to be what Bickel calls, "a perfect pair."
There approximately 5,000 black rhinos worldwide. Though the AZA estimates that at one time their numbers were more than 850,000.
The normal gestation period for a black rhino is 15 to 17 months, so Ayana likely conceived last summer.
