13-year-old white rhino Sabi is expecting her first calf! While every rhino pregnancy is exciting, Sabi’s is especially so. Following her arrival in Toronto in 2012, hormone monitoring performed by our Reproductive Science team identified that Sabi exhibited "long" estrus cycles (~70 days in length, compared to the typical ~35 days of fertile females), which have made conception a significant challenge for her. Following continual adjustments in husbandry and diet, Sabi’s behaviour in spring 2022 suggested that her hormonal cycles had switched from the subfertile long cycles to the typical cycle length. The likelihood of successfully conceiving for the first time drops with age in many species, including white rhinos, and Zoo staff were keenly aware of this with Sabi. The Toronto Zoo Wildlife Care and Reproductive Science teams are thrilled that the breeding introductions with male Tom in summer 2022 were successful.

A white rhino’s gestation period lasts 425-496 days (approximately 16 months), and we expect Sabi will give birth sometime between early September and late October. Sabi is trained to participate in voluntary ultrasound examinations, which allowed our team to confirm pregnancy and monitor the calf’s early development (the baby is now too big, and oriented too far forward internally, to be able to see well). Given Sabi’s challenges with conceiving and those associated with a first pregnancy, we kept the news under wraps until she reached the beginning of her third trimester. This will be the second calf sired by 15-year-old male white rhino, Tom. His first calf, Theo, was born in December 2017, and left Toronto in late 2021 for the Greater Vancouver Zoo. Sabi was an incredible aunt to Theo, and we look forward to seeing her maternal instincts with her own little calf!

Guests who know Sabi well will notice her “baby bump” is starting to show, and will continue to grow over the summer. Wildlife Care staff have been delighted to feel movement in her belly. While she has been sleepier than normal, Sabi continues to be her sassy self and has grumpy moments towards her sister Zohari. Her appetite varies day to day, but she always checks on the food Zohari receives, not so much out of hunger but jealousy! She has definitely been enjoying the added attention, particularly the belly scratches she receives from guests participating in behind-the-scenes Wild Encounters tours.

This pregnancy is exciting both for the baby along the way, but also because it helps secure Sabi’s future reproductive viability and the sustainability of rhino populations in human care. White rhinos in the wild are listed as Near Threatened on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. Although they are the most common rhino species, there are fewer than 16,000 left in the wild, with numbers currently declining due to the continued increase in poaching for their horn for the black market trade. In addition to caring for our rhinos, your Toronto Zoo also supports the International Rhino Foundation and the critical work that they do to protect wild rhino populations.

You can support Sabi, along with all of the animals at the Zoo, by adopting a white rhino for $25 from Toronto Zoo Wildlife Conservancy. By adopting a Toronto Zoo white rhino, you will receive a personalized digital certificate of adoption that will be emailed to you, along with a full charitable tax receipt for the donor, PLUS, the chance to be entered to win a Behind the Scenes tour for two people with the white rhinos 🦏 Details: https://bit.ly/42rgjtD