One of the rarest mammals on the planet was born in an English zoo (2 photos + 1 video)
Staff at Chester Zoo in Cheshire captured on camera the birth of a black rhinoceros calf (Diceros bicornis), which was born on November 12th. 
“We've been looking forward to this birth for 15 long months, and as it's quite unusual for a rhino to give birth during daylight hours, we really didn't expect it to happen right in front of our noses. Watching the calf be born safely before our eyes was an incredible privilege,” Emma Evison, Chester Zoo Rhino Team Manager. 
Newborn calf Zuri runs around at Chester Zoo
The newborn has not yet received a name, and his mother's name is Zuri. The calf is healthy, well-fed and “very inquisitive and full of energy,” Evison said.
Africa's black rhino population once numbered in the tens of thousands, but today only about 6,500 remain in the wild. Several subspecies are already extinct, and most of those that still exist are endangered due to ongoing poaching and habitat loss.
“Unfortunately, this species has been poached for its horns for over a hundred years. The arrival of this calf is another important step in the conservation of this species. This is what the endangered species breeding program in European zoos, of which we are an important part, strives to achieve,” Emma Evison.
Experts at Chester Zoo have been breeding black rhinoceroses for many years in an attempt to maintain a genetically healthy population of these animals in Africa. One of the secrets to Chester Zoo's success is the careful monitoring of rhinos' reproductive hormones by analyzing their faeces. This is how zookeepers figure out which males and females are best suited for each other and when they should mate.
In 2019, Chester Zoo staff helped implement an ambitious project which saw a large group of eastern black rhinos, bred in European zoos, returned to the wild in a national park in Rwanda.
Today, fewer than 600 black rhinos live in Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda. Although these populations appear to be growing slowly following intensive protection measures, time is not on the black rhino's side.
Each female black rhino can only have one calf at a time, and the gestation period lasts up to 16 months. As poaching and habitat loss continue, some scientists believe captive breeding programs are critical to the continued survival of the species.
