International Rhino Foundation - Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary

Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary

Because of the challenges and uncertainties of conserving the Sumatran rhino, the IUCN Species Survival Commission’s Asian Rhino Specialist Group recommended developing a captive breeding program as part of a larger population management strategy. Rhino experts agreed that successful reproduction would require sufficiently natural conditions and large enclosures. In the early 1990s, managed propagation centers (known as “sanctuaries”) were developed in native habitat in the range states, to which some captive rhinos were repatriated. The first and still most important center is the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary (SRS) in Way Kambas National Park, Sumatra, Indonesia. The SRS encompasses 100 hectares (247 acres) for propagation, research and education, and received its first rhino in 1998. Until recently, the Sanctuary held only one pair of animals, which were not reproductively sound. The SRS is now home to five animals and is staffed by two full-time Indonesian veterinarians, ten keepers, and several administrative and support staff.

Over the years, a number of circumstantial, medical, and management problems have been addressed and overcome. As a result, within the last decade, the husbandry and captive propagation of Sumatran rhinos has passed from its infancy to its adolescence. The International Rhino Foundation has been steadfastly working to address these issues with the expertise of numerous veterinarians and reproductive biologists.

The five Sumatran rhinos living at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary – Rosa, Ratu, Bina, Torgamba, and Andalas – serve as ambassadors for their wild counterparts; instruments for education for local communities and the general public; an ‘insurance’ population that can be used to reestablish or revitalize wild populations that have been eliminated or debilitated; an invaluable resource for basic and applied biological research; and hopefully, in the future, as sources of animals for reintroductions, once threats have been ameliorated in their natural habitat. In 2011, Andalas (born on September 13, 2001) derived from Cincinnati, Ohio, USA has managed to impregnate Ratu who grew up in the wild but wandered out of the forest and now lives in the park. On June 23, 2012 the baby boy is born (after 2 miscarried) for the first time in (semi) natural breeding centre after waiting more than a century.