JAKARTA - A Sumatran rhino has been born in western Indonesia, officials said on Nov 27. This is a rare sanctuary birth for the critically endangered animal, with only several dozen believed to be left in the world, they added.

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimate the population of Sumatran rhinos to number less than 80 on the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Borneo.

A female rhino named Delilah gave birth to a yet-to-be-named male calf weighing 25kg at Way Kambas National Park in Sumatra over the weekend. It is fathered by a rhino called Harapan.

The calf is the fifth to be born under a semi-wild breeding programme at the park, Indonesian Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar said in a statement. The new addition to the Sumatran rhino herd at Way Kambas comes after another baby Sumatran rhino was born there in September. The herd now has 10 rhinos.

“This birth is the second birth of the Sumatran rhino in 2023. This further strengthens the government’s commitment to rhino conservation in Indonesia,” she said.

A conservation guard found Delilah lying next to her newborn calf on Nov 25, the ministry statement said.

Successful births are rare. A male rhino named Andatu, born in 2012 at Way Kambas, was the first Sumatran rhino born in an Indonesian sanctuary in more than 120 years. IUCN classifies the Sumatran rhino, the smallest of all rhino species, as critically endangered.

Multiple threats, including poaching and climate change, have brought them to the brink of extinction. Rhino horn is often illegally traded for traditional Chinese medicine.

Indonesia is also racing to save another critically endangered species, the Javan rhino, with fewer than 80 alive today. AFP