Sumatran Rhion Begum

The London Zoo has imported 8 sumatran rhinos between 1872 and 1886. This is the female Begum,she arrived in 1872 aged five and died in 1900. She was until now the oldest sumatran rhino in captivity and she holds the longvitity record for the species.

WOW never knew they had so many there and them living so long, wonder what they fed them at that time

I ask me, if they had the same eye problems they have now at the Cincy Zoo.

MARK said:

WOW never knew they had so many there and them living so long, wonder what they fed them at that time

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Fascinating to think ZSL in the 1800's could keep one for 28 years, whereas in the USA a hundred years later they were all dying from malnutrition!

Zebraduiker said:

I ask me, if they had the same eye problems they have now at the Cincy Zoo.

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Possibly not(?), as for many months per year there is less sunshine/bright light in the UK. It would be interesting to know if any of the other Sumatrans which have been kept in European zoos suffered these eye problems.

You could probably get an answer by finding whether Malayan Tapirs in Europe are prone to this condition or not(as they also do in Australia). If the Tapirs don't, the rhinos probably didn't either, or vice versa..

Is there something specialised about their diet that they didn't have, causing most of them to die?

ashley-h said:

Is there something specialised about their diet that they didn't have, causing most of them to die?

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For som reason the ones in the USA zoos couldn't be coaxed into feeding and mostly starved to death- until they discovered that they would eat Ficus leaves. Yet the much earlier ones kept at Regents Park don't seem to have had that problem, nor the ones at Copenhagen or Port Lympne....

So do they only eat browse?

No, but it is a big part of their diet.

John Aspinall kept two at Port Lympne in the 1990s until they were sent back to Indonesia as part of the conservation agreement. Port Lympne and London Zoo are zoos relative close to each other, hence getting the same climate and weather. Did Aspinall's animals have this particular eye problem? What were the main problems discovered during their stay in Kent? If more could be imported to the UK, that would be great, but of course there is no John Aspinall any longer.