Phoenix-area zoo welcomes 3 white rhinos from South Africa to its park
Nov 20, 2017, 4:45 AM | Updated: 11:35 am
(AP Photo/Petr David Josek, File)
PHOENIX — A Phoenix-area zoo has welcomed three new members to its family ahead of the holidays.
The Wildlife World Zoo in Litchfield Park, Arizona, has imported three white rhinos into the park from South Africa, zoo director Mickey Olson said.
The animals arrived to the park last week. Olson said the additions have concluded a 20-month journey by zoo officials to get the rhinos into the Valley.
White rhinos are an important commodity in South Africa. Hunters always seek them out in an effort to get their horns because people in African countries believe ground-up horn can cure diseases and act as an aphrodisiac.
Poachers will pay upwards of $300,000 for one horn and because of the high demand, Olson said the animals are heavily threatened.
Olson said rhinos are an endangered species, with less than 30,000 left in the wild, compared to 70,000 less than four decades ago.
The animals will be on display starting in January, when the zoo will open its new, 9-acre addition to the safari park.
The addition of white rhinos comes shortly after the zoo welcomed the state’s first baby sea lion. Sunny the sea lion was born in October and is now part of the park’s sea lion exhibit.