Joy at Osnabrück Zoo about a rhinoceros girl: the calf named Lisbeth was born on February 19th by mother Amalie. The joy in the zoo is great, said a spokeswoman on Friday. "The first rhinos came to Osnabrück Zoo in 1979 - we've been hoping for offspring ever since," said Fritz Brickwedde, President of the Osnabrück Zoo Society. Mother Amalie had already expected a young in 2021. At that time the calf was born dead.

With the help of surveillance cameras, the team led by zoological director Tobias Klumpe followed whether the rhino cow showed any signs of birth. With a routine look, he saw part of the amniotic sac, Klumpe said. The calf was born within three minutes. After an initial examination, mother and child were initially only observed from afar to give them peace and to promote a firm mother-child bond. The newborn weighed 40 kilograms, it said. It gains a kilogram a day.

For many years, the Osnabrück Zoo has been trying to optimize the housing conditions for the rhinos so that breeding can be successful, explained Klumpe. In the wild, the population of rhinos in southern Africa has been reduced by a quarter in the past ten years. It is therefore elementary to both protect the habitat and build up a reserve population.