Disney announces 3 white rhinos are pregnant at Animal Kingdom

We all know good things come in threes. And at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, some good news was announced today. The park has three pregnant white rhinoceros.

The rhinoceros are the world’s second-largest land animal and among the most endangered animals in the wild due to poaching.

This is the first time Disney’s Animal Kingdom has ever had this many horns and hooves on the horizon,  Dr. Mark Penning, Vice President, Animals, Science and Environment, Disney Parks wrote on the Disney Parks Blog.

Here’s the lineup:

• Kendi, who was the first rhino born at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in 1999, is the first due, with a calf expected to be born sometime this October.
• Jao is expected to give birth sometime in fall 2021.
• Lola is due in fall / winter 2021.

Rhinos have a 16 to 18 month gestation period, so each of these births are roughly 1 ½ years in the making. All three rhinos were chosen to breed through Species Survival Plans (SSPs), which are overseen by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums to ensure the responsible breeding of endangered species.

“The key to a successful breeding program with any animal is to have healthy animals. In our situation we have a very big social group and so we have animals that are well adjusted, all friendly with each other, and then we brought in a really amazing male who is not represented in our population this has been very important breeding,” Disney’s Animal Kingdom Dr. Natalie Mylniczenko said.

Dugan, the herd’s bull, is the father of all three calves. 

A successful breeding program also means the park can can “do what we did a few years back where we can repatriate a white rhinoceros back into Africa,” Mylniczenko said. “We can really contribute to world’s population of rhinoceros.”