Houston zoo mourns death of white rhino

Monday, April 03, 2006

(4/03/06 - HOUSTON) -- Officials at the Houston zoo are mourning the death of Marci, a southern white rhino who had been at the facility for 35 years.

But somebody else is also feeling her loss: Bu, the other rhino at the zoo.

On Friday morning, Bu slowly walked around his yard as if looking for something.

Rhinos are nearsighted and depend mainly on their hearing and sense of smell. Marci's scent was still in the pen, and will linger there for days. Marci was 38 when she died Thursday morning.

Zookeepers brushed her leathery hide one last time to fill the wiry bristles with her scent. They hoped it would comfort Bu, short for Samburu, who is a year younger than Marci.

Liz Edgington, a keeper at the zoo, said she and the other employees will comfort Bu in the coming days as Marci's scent fades, giving him extra brushings and food that he likes.

"He may never get over Marci's death," she said, rubbing his thick hide with the brush that smelled like Marci.

Both rhinos came to the zoo in 1971 from the Umfolozi Game Reserve in South Africa.

They were expected to become a breeding pair. But officials hadn't realized that under white rhinos' social structure, females won't breed unless other females are around.

While Bu might have been interested in Marci, short for Marcibit, she didn't have the same feelings. The rhinos became more like siblings or an old married couple. Marci died of natural causes.

Zoo director Rick Barongi, also a board member of the International Rhino Foundation, said it's possible the zoo will send Bu to some other institution for breeding purposes.

According to the Smithsonian Institution's National Zoological Park, there are about 11,700 white rhinos living in the wild, with about 780 living in captivity.

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