Ratu's Pregnancy Loss

The International Rhino Foundation family is saddened by the loss of the first pregnancy of Ratu, a young female Sumatran rhino at Indonesia’s Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Way Kambas National Park. Ratu and male Andalas, the first of only three Sumatran rhinos born in captivity in more than 112 years, bred successfully in January (although they first mated in December, it was not successful) and we announced the good news in February 2010. Unfortunately, recent examinations indicated that the embryo is no longer present.  

This is not unusual for a rhino’s first pregnancy.  While we are saddened by the loss, achieving a pregnancy confirms that the Sumatran rhino breeding program is progressing. Emi, Andalas’ mother, lost a number of pregnancies early in gestation before she carried one to term at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden. Experience and information gained with Emi will be used to help Ratu sustain her next pregnancy, once she is ready.

Andalas and Ratu were brought together through international goodwill and cooperation in an effort to save this critically endangered species. Ratu wandered into a village just outside Sumatra’s Way Kambas National Park in 2006; Andalas was born at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden in 2001, grew up at the Los Angeles Zoo and was transferred from the L.A. Zoo to the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in 2007.

Three years after Andalas’ successful transition to the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary, he and Ratu mated. The breeding followed months of gradual introduction by scent, sound, sight, and finally, physical proximity, ultimately resulting in the pregnancy.  

Captive breeding is one part of IRF’s integrated conservation strategy for the Sumatran rhino, which is now down to no more than 200 animals in the wild and 10 in captivity.  IRF’s focus is to protect rhinos in the wild as well as to bolster the population through captive breeding.  IRF also funds anti-poaching units in three Indonesian national parks. Thanks to those programs, there has been no rhino poaching in the last five years, and poaching of other large vertebrates which share rhino habitat has decreased significantly.  Saving Sumatran rhinos requires a balance of caring for the wild population and trying to breed as many animals as possible in captivity in order to boost population numbers.

 

 

 

A viable and holistic program that involves captive breeding will provide insurance against the difficulties and uncertainties of protecting the Sumatran rhino in the wild.  In addition, solid success with this species may provide a model for development of a similar program for the critically endangered Javan rhino, whose population is more stable but numbers no more than 50 individuals in the wild, and has no insurance population in captivity.  Indonesia harbors two critically endangered rhino species, but with far less attention than African rhinos, under pressure from a 15-year high in poaching for horn, which is used in traditional Asian medicine as a fever-reducing agent.