Toronto Zoo’s White Rhino Sabi Is Pregnant! On Mother’s Day weekend Toronto Zoo staff announced their 13-year-old white rhino Sabi is expecting her first calf! While every rhino pregnancy is exciting, Sabi’s is especially so. Following her arrival in Toronto in 2012 the zoo’s Reproductive Science team identified that she exhibited “long” estrus cycles, which have made conception a significant challenge for her. Following continual adjustments in husbandry and diet, Sabi’s behaviour in spring 2022 suggested that her hormonal cycles had switched from the subfertile long cycles to the typical cycle length. “We are overjoyed with the news of Sabi’s pregnancy, and it is such a great example of how the various Zoo teams work closely with one another,” says Grant Furniss, Director of Wildlife Care, Toronto Zoo. “They say it takes a village to raise a child, and at the Toronto Zoo this is certainly the case as we prepare for newborns”. A white rhino’s gestation period lasts 425-496 days (approximately 16 months), and staff expect Sabi will give birth some time between early September and late October. She is trained to participate in voluntary ultrasound examinations which allowed the Toronto team to confirm the pregnancy and monitor the calf’s early development. This will be the second calf sired by 15-year-old male white rhino, Tom. His first calf, Theo, was born in December 2017, and left Toronto in late 2021 for the Greater Vancouver Zoo.
