The pair of Sumatran rhinos, Torgamba and Meranti, in the wood part of their 12 acre exhibit. Meranti died in 1994, the male wass end back to indonesia in 1998.
He is now one of the oldest sumatran rhinos in captivity.
It seems you have the sumatran rhino blues taun , i only saw them once in the early nineties i was living in london and on the few days where i had the free time i would try to get down to kent in order to get to the Aspinall parks , i once saw a single rhino probably the male Torgampa , similar to the picture he was bathing within a mudpool , will never forget seeing such a rare animal for the rest of my day
I got to see the Cincinnati ones for five or ten minutes in the indoor stables in 2003 but it is five or ten minutes I will never forget. I visited in May 2003 but on such a sunny day that the rhinos were kept inside due to fear of sunburn. Fortunately I came across their keeper and asked them where they were, which he told me. Hearing that I had come all the way from Iceland to see a Sumatran rhino (which was both true and not true, I was on a Midwest zoo tour and had to do Cincinnati of course) made him feel sorry for me so he took me inside for a look. So beautiful, amazing, loving, those words and others like them are the only ones I can use for the animals I was granted the special permission to see that day.
I saw Torgamba and Meranti shortly after they had been introduced, sitting together at the bottom of the more open paddock. I will post photos soon. Years later, I saw Torgamba just before he left, at this point it was 1997, the complex largely housed Malayan tapirs, and he was mixed with a pair of tapir in the wooded paddock, while another, breeding pair of tapir had the more open paddock.
I am comfortable that I will never see a Javan Rhino in my lifetime. While I cherish the fact I saw Sumatrans, I never underestimate the magic of film.
