Preparations for southern white rhinos

If you’ve been keeping up with the exciting Grand New View news, you know we’re preparing to welcome southern white rhinos in 2019! The rhinos will occupy a new habitat in what is currently our elephant habitat.

Although Zoo Atlanta previously housed eastern black rhinos, white rhinos require different care and housing due to their larger size, dietary differences and social structures. Now that we’re getting closer to welcoming new southern white rhinos, the Mammal Team has been reaching out to and visiting other organizations that house this species to learn about their care, training, housing and behavior. Another team member, Amanda, and I recently returned from the North Carolina Zoo, where we shadowed their rhino care team. We also observed a training session and assisted with feeding the rhinos their morning diets, and were able to talk about the differences in social dynamics between white rhinos and black rhinos.

We’re excited to share what we learned with the rest of our team, and start counting down the days for the new rhinos to arrive. We hope you’re as excited as we are to welcome this incredible species to our Zoo family in 2019!
Sarah Snider
Mammal Keeper