THE baby rhino born at West Midland Safari Park earlier this month has been named Fahari. 

Keepers at the Bewdley attraction chose Fahari, which is of Swahili origina and means 'splendour', for the new youngster - who is the first female rhino calf to be born at the Park for 15 years.

First-time mother, eight-year-old Keyah gave birth to Fahari shortly before 5.30pm on Friday, September 8, following a lengthy 16-month pregnancy.

The birth is another great success for the Park and its white rhino breeding programme - following the arrival of Fahari's half-brother, Ekozu, in March last year. In the wild, southern white rhinos face a huge threat due to habitat loss and more commonly, poaching.

Keepers said the long-awaited new arrival took around an hour to find her feet and was alert and feeding at around five hours old.

Ian Nock, deputy head keeper of African Ungulates said: “It’s absolutely brilliant to have a second baby rhino, following a lot of hard work with our breeding programme.

"We were lucky enough to have Ekozu arrive last year and now we have Fahari to join him, which is great.

"All the animals born at the Park in 2017 have to begin with the letter ‘F’ so keepers chose a variety of names which were then put to the vote. There were two clear favourites, but we went with the African word Fahari as it means ‘splendour’ and she is just that.

“Both mum and calf are doing really well.

"Keyah is terrific mum, as we knew she would be and she definitely has her work cut out for her as Fahari is proving to be very feisty."

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