Rhinos moving to fancy new living quarters
By: Katie Worth
Examiner Staff Writer
August 3, 2009
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| Elly has lived in the same enclosure since 1994, but will be moving to a new habitat sometime in the next several weeks. (AP file photo) |
It is going to be the road trip of Elly the rhino’s life.
After spending every day of the past 35 years in sleeping in a cramped barn and aging yard, Elly the black rhino will soon find herself on a forklift, traveling the quarter-mile to her brand new digs on the other side of the San Francisco Zoo.
Elly has been in the same enclosure since she arrived at the zoo from Africa as a yearling in 1974; her neighbor, Mashaki, has been one enclosure over since he arrived from Cincinnati in 1994. The barns they sleep in and yard they spend their days in were built in the 1960s, said zoo general curator Mike Sulak.
But after a $3 million project is completed in September, Elly and Mashaki will find themselves in much expanded quarters. The new exhibit will feature larger pools, large trees that are — hopefully — indestructible and large boulders welded to the ground via poles.
To get the rhinos from to the new enclosure, zookeepers will haul them in a rhino-sized crate.
The crates stand more than 8 feet tall, Sulak said, and have already been placed in the rhino’s cages to allow the beasts get used to them. Over the next several weeks, the “mega-vertebrates” will be encouraged to walk in and out of the crates and rest in them. Once the rhinos are fully comfortable with being enclosed in the crates, they will be boxed up, picked up with a large forklift and carried to the new barns.
While the rhino’s fates have been decided, less clear is whether they’ll be joined in the new exhibit by other hippopotami any time soon.
The zoo’s last remaining hippo, Cuddles, was euthanized last summer because of age-related problems. Her companion, Puddles, had passed away the year before. This spring, there was some discussion of the zoo acquiring another hippopotamus, but that idea has been tabled for now, said zoo spokeswoman Lora LaMarca.
A primary barrier to bringing new hippos onboard is the cost, Sulak said. The zoo’s budget has been tight, in part because of the legal costs that followed the Christmas 2007 tiger attack that killed a 17-year-old and injured two of his friends.
When the budget loosens up a bit, a new hippo might again be a possibility, Sulak said — and when that happens, the new exhibit will be ready for them.
