Whipsnade Zoo welcomes its 61st southern white rhino calf

Whipsnade Zoo has welcomed Mazinda, a male southern white rhino calf, more than 50 years after beginning a conservation breeding programme for the threatened species. His birth marks a continuing part of the zoo’s effort to support a healthy, genetically diverse population.

Born on 1 November to Fahari and Sizzle, Mazinda weighed about 40kg, around 11 times the weight of an average human baby. He is the 61st white rhino calf born at Whipsnade since 1970 and is named after the zoo’s first calf, born in 1971. Wild white rhinos, once reduced to about 20 in South Africa, now number an estimated 17,500 across Africa, but poaching and habitat loss remain threats.