SUCCESSFUL RHINO MATING THRILLS ZOO OFFICIALS.Byline: Tracy Valeri Daily News Staff Writer After a short courtship, Emi and Ipuh are expecting the pitter-patter of little hooves in a little more than a year - and zoo officials in Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. and Cincinnati are ecstatic. Emi, a rare Sumatran rhino from Los Angeles has successfully become impregnated im·preg·nate tr.v. im·preg·nat·ed, im·preg·nat·ing, im·preg·nates 1. To make pregnant; inseminate. 2. To fertilize (an ovum, for example). 3. - the first confirmed pregnancy of a captive Sumatran rhino in 108 years. Emi has been in the L.A. Zoo since 1991, when she was captured in the wild. Zoo keepers sent her to Cincinnati in 1995 to breed her. Keepers in Ohio started the hard work this year. ``When we knew that she could reproduce in July, we started introducing her to Ipuh, and six to seven weeks after that we had the first breeding,'' said Dr. Terri Roth, director of Center for Research of Endangered Wildlife at the Cincinnati Zoo. It was during the second breeding session Sept. 17 that she became pregnant, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. Roth. Now her keepers in both cities are proud. ``It was a big risk sending her but I'm glad we did,'' said Manuel Mollinedo, director of the Los Angeles Zoo The Los Angeles Zoo founded in 1966, is a large zoo located in Los Angeles, California, USA. The Zoo, located in Los Angeles' Griffith Park, is home to 1,200 animals from around the world. . ``We'll be learning a lot from this - breeding habits, gestation period Gestation period In mammals, the interval between fertilization and birth. It covers the total period of development of the offspring, which consists of a preimplantation phase (from fertilization to implantation in the mother's womb), an embryonic phase . It's a wonderful day for the L.A. Zoo.'' Emi came to the L.A. Zoo in November 1991. She is one of only three of the endangered Sumatran rhinos left in U.S. zoos. When Emi went to meet Ipuh in 1995, it was part of a plan by the Sumatran Rhino Trust, a cooperative breeding Cooperative breeding is a social system in which individuals help care for young that are not their own. The non-parental care givers (alloparents) may be other reproducing adults, as in the case of lionesses who litter at the same time nursing and caring for their cubs communally; and conservation program formed by four U.S. zoos: Los Angeles, Cincinnati, the Bronx and San Diego. Ipuh is the only male of his type in the nation, so officials knew that a successful fertilization of Emi was a last hope for breeding these animals in captivity. Sumatran rhinos are small, long-haired mammals that are native to the rain forests of Indonesia, but the animals are being killed by poachers and losing their habitat to loggers. Experts believe there are only 200 to 400 Sumatran rhinos left in the world. CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: Red-haired Sumatran rhinos, endangered by poaching poaching: see cooking. and loss of Indonesian habitat, may number as few as 200 in the world. |
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