There wasn’t much activity around the rhino enclosure at Bratislava Zoo, either from visitors or the rhinos themselves. Trusting people not to jump over the wall, which wasn’t relatively very high, it meant that visitors could get very close to these animals. I’m aware there’s a school of thought that all zoos should be closed, but I take the view that they perform educational and breeding benefits to the wider community, not just a leisure facility.
It’s quite pointy. I’m not sure that I’ll be the new David Attenborough with these type of observations, but it is factually correct.
The zoo had two rhinos, or at least, it had two rhinos that I actually saw. It seems that they’re both female and one of them, Tootsie, is from Lowestoft (more specifically Africa Alive in Kessingland) so she’s had a dead exotic upbringing. I did wonder how you go about moving a rhino, but here’s a video of Tootsie being moved.
And today’s fun fact is that they have no real predators, just lions and hyenas which might attack the frail, young, stupid or sick. I’m not sure how these things have evolved to be able to run at up to 50 kilometres or so an hour, that’s quite some pace. And as another quick fact, black rhinos and white rhinos are both grey, it’s just that someone couldn’t translate the Afrikaans word ‘weit’ or ‘wijd’ which means ‘wide’ and not ‘white’.