The Buffalo Zoo introduced Indian one-horned rhino Mohan to the public Friday morning.
Mohan’s birth is significant. Indian one-horned rhinos are designated as a vulnerable species by the World Wildlife Fund.
Mohan is also the product of artificial insemination, a relatively new scientific undertaking, as it relates to rhinos. Assistant Curator Joe Hauser has been working with Mohan’s mother Tashi since 2011.
“We actually preformed the artificial insemination on February 15th of 2018. Her gestation was exactly 488 days,” Hauser said. “We actually determined her pregnancy really early on, at 19 days. So we saw little Mohan when he was a couple centimeters, not even.”
As Mohan and his mother walked around their enclosure, Buffalo Zoo CEO Norah Fletchall said this species of rhino is not a pack animal.
“This is how you would see them in the wild, just mom and her calf,” she said. “The males have nothing to do with the care of the babies. So they come together for breeding in the wild, and then the moms and the calves separate off.”
George is another Indian one-horned rhino who is housed in another enclosure. He is not the father of Mohan. That distinction belongs to a rhino from Zoo Miami.
All of the rhinos are part of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums' preservation program.
