Rare baby rhino born at Scottish safari park
\A safari park near Stirling has delivered a newborn rare southern white rhino.
Southern white rhinos are being hunted into decline in the wild.
Bruce is the fourth calf born to mother Dorothy, known to her keepers as Dot, at Blair Drummond Safari Park.
While southern white rhinos are not currently endangered, the species is vulnerable to poachers due to a high demand for rhino horn in Asian markets.
Chris Lucas, team leader for large mammals, welcomed Bruce into the world at 1.10am on Sunday.
He said: "This is Dot's fourth calf born here in the park and her second male. Words: PA
"Angus, her third calf, was also born here but he's moving on to Paris in the middle of November to start a bachelor group over there.
"Southern white rhinos can be quite tricky to breed in captivity. It all comes down to how they're managed.
"We take a quite hands-off approach to it, and basically leave it up them. As a result we have been quite successful with all four calves born in the last seven years.
"At the moment southern white rhinos aren't classed as endangered. I think they are still vulnerable as obviously with poaching increasing at the moment it's something like one rhino being killed every 12 hours.
"I think last year something like 1,000 individuals ended up being poached.
"They're at a point where at the moment I think the population is still, just, increasing but it will soon go into a decline because of the demand from the Asian markets for rhino horn products.
"It can be quite challenging bringing the rhinos up, particularly with the climate in Scotland, but we try to do it so that the animals can choose where they want to spend their time.
"Obviously the buildings are very warm, sitting between 20-25 degrees so that's an ideal temperature for him.
"We pretty much leave everything to Dot. She's a very experienced and very good mother, so she's knows exactly what needs to be done and she's done a very good job with the other three calfs.
"The first calf she had here has actually gone on to have a calf of her own, so both Dot and the father Graham are now grandparents.
"To an extent rhinos get a bit of a bad press. People kind of think that they are very aggressive animals, but they're not.
"If you leave them alone they will leave you alone. Obviously with Dot, she's very relaxed, very chilled out, but if she thought you were threatening her calf or if she didn't like your presence she won't be shy of showing it so you kind of have to treat them with a healthy respect."
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