SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio Zoo welcomed a male rhinoceros, Stormy, and introduced him to the zoo and our female rhinos yesterday. Stormy arrived from North Carolina Zoo, and our Animal Care staff and all of our zoo crew are extremely excited to have him as a part of our zoo family. In the coming weeks, he will get to know his new home in The Savanna as he mingles with the female rhinos, Reina and West.
This new male Southern White Rhino will provide zoo guests another opportunity to appreciate near-threatened species at San Antonio Zoo. Stormy is a thirty-year-old white rhino and was brought to San Antonio Zoo as a part of the Association of Zoos & Aquarium’s Species Survival Plan in hopes he will breed with the zoo’s two females. At his previous home, Stormy sired four calves.
“We are thrilled about Stormy’s arrival,” said President & CEO San Antonio Zoo, Tim Morrow. “San Antonio Zoo was the first facility in the Americas to successfully birth a rhino in 1972. Since that time, San Antonio Zoo has had 22 rhino births, both black rhinos, and white rhinos, throughout its history, with the last being in 2004.”
In preparation for the arrival of Reina, West in 2019, and now Stormy the zoo expanded and improved the rhino habitat of The Savanna in 2019 adding trees, landscape, more shade, a waterfall, creek, and even a nursery. The Savanna at San Antonio Zoo is currently home to rhinos, zebras, giraffes, ostriches, cranes, and storks with more species planned to be introduced in future years.
The majority of the southern white rhinos occur in just four countries: South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Kenya. Southern white rhinos were thought to be extinct in the late 19th century, but in 1895 a small population of fewer than 100 individuals was discovered in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa. After more than a century of protection and management, they are now classified as Near Threatened and 19,600 – 21,000 animals exist in protected areas and private game reserves. They are the only of the five rhino species that are not endangered.
PHOTO: SAN ANTONIO ZOO