Rare captive-born Sumatran rhino arrives at Indonesian sanctuary

Feb 21, 2007, 6:39 GMT

Jakarta - After travelling more than 60 hours, the first Sumatran rhinocerous born in captivity in more than 100 years arrived in its native Indonesian island home Wednesday to take part in a breeding programme to help save the endangered species from extinction.

The 5-year-old male rhino named Andalas, who was born in the United States, arrived in the Way Kambas National Park in the southern Sumatran province of Lampung after about 12 hours of truck and ferry rides from Jakarta's airport and an even longer flight from Los Angeles, said Marcellius Adi, site manager of the park.

'He is healthy although he was looked nervous when arrived here this morning,' Marcellius told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. 'It's understandable for such a confusion because he had to be inside his cage for up to 62 hours.'

Marcellius said that before being released into the 100-hectare sanctuary, where females Rosa and Ratu were waiting, the young rhino would be placed in quarantine for about a month, during which he would be closely monitored.

Andalas, whose name comes from the ancient moniker for Sumatra, is the first Sumatran rhino bred in captivity since 1889 when one of his kind was born at the Calcutta Zoo in India.

'He is still young. Let's just hope he will be able to produce offspring with the females there to help save this endangered species from extinction,' Marcellius said, adding that Andalas' arrival in Indonesia was vital to the future of two-horned Sumatran rhinos.

Rampant poaching of the rhinos for their horns, which are used in traditional Asian medicine, combined with the destruction of their forest habitat through farming and illegal logging, has rendered the Sumatran rhino among the world's most endangered species.

Environmental groups estimated fewer than 300 rhinos are left in the wild.

Andalas was born in September 2001 at the Cincinnati Zoo and later moved to the Los Angeles Zoo. His parents were captured in a national park on Sumatra in 1990 and sent the following year to Cincinnati under a programme aimed at saving the species.

Sumatran rhinos live within the massive island's dense tropical forests, but they are also found on peninsular Malaysia and Borneo. The Indonesian government and zoos around the world have long been struggling to keep the Sumatran rhinos from becoming extinct.

At 1.2 to 1.3 metres high and 2.5 to 2.8 metres long, they are the smallest, as well as the hairiest, of the five rhino species, all of which are endangered.