Rhino Nyah turns five

It’s five years today since the Zoo’s Southern white rhino Jamila gave birth (in minutes of her waters breaking!) to her first offspring – female Nyah, who weighed in at a sturdy 65kg and was up walking less than half an hour after being delivered.

Active, confident, and independent from an early age, birthday rhino Nyah has grown into a much-loved older sibling and playmate to female Amali (almost three years old) and male Zuka (aged seven months). Now close to her mother in size, she currently tips the scales at 1638kg - over 25 times her birth weight!

“We all love Nyah. She is very calm in nature, but also full of life with a playful sassy side that keeps us keepers on our toes, and when it comes to training, she is always eager and quick to learn new behaviours,” says Ungulates keeper Jess Burgess, who has worked with the Zoo’s rhino herd for over seven years.

“As the first offspring to Jamila and dad Zambezi in 2020, and at this time, the first rhino to be born at Auckland Zoo in over 20 years, she’s a very special member of the herd, and it’s been amazing to see her mature and play such a positive role with Amali and Zuka.”

At five years old, Nyah has now reached sexual maturity, and with important genetics passed on from her parents, she will in the near future relocate to an Australian zoo as part of the ZAA (Zoo Aquarium Association) regional breeding and advocacy programme for her species.    

In time, this will see her paired up to breed with an equally valuable male equivalent to contribute to maintaining a strong sustainable zoos’ population in the Australasian region.

“Some regular visitors might notice that Nyah is no longer sharing the same habitat as her dad Zambezi, and that she and Zambezi are alternating being out with Jamila, Amali, and Zuka. This is because Nyah has now started to cycle, so needs to be managed separately,” explains Jess.

“As we do with any animals in our care that are destined to relocate, we work well in advance to prepare them to help ensure the smoothest move possible, and crate training - which we’ve been doing with Nyah for a while now, is a key part of this,” explains Jess. 

“Nyah is now super happy walking into and backing out of her transport crate and having us shut its door – and being so food motivated, loves the lucerne rewards she gets for doing this!  We have a few more steps to complete her crate training that we’ll be introducing over the coming weeks and months. Using our training chute area, we’re also now training Nyah to be comfortable with us taking blood draws from her – ahead of blood tests we’ll need to do as part of the standard pre-export quarantine process,” says Jess.    

The Southern white rhinoceros - currently classified as ‘Near Threatened,’ plays a vital role in maintaining healthy ecosystems for itself and many other species in the southern African savannah, scrub, and woodlands habitats where it lives. In the early 1900s it came close to extinction, but thanks to the hard mahi of many, it has recovered to a population of over 17,000 today. However, it continues to be threatened by habitat loss, political unrest, and especially poaching - for its horns.

Auckland Zoo has supported the conservation of Southern white rhino and is currently a strategic partner of the Sumatran Rhino Survival Alliance, who are taking a ground-breaking approach to save this Critically Endangered species.

Whenever you visit the Zoo, you’re joining us in supporting projects like this one, and many others to help threatened species here in Aotearoa and around the world – so thank you!

On your next visit be sure to venture through our Africa Safari Track to see Nyah and the rest of the rhino herd and keep an eye on our social channels for further Nyah updates.