Parity as a major factor affecting infant mortality of highly endaged Indian rhinoceros: Evidence from zoos and Dudhwa National Park, India
Abstract
The Indian rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis) is a highly endangered species that inhabits only three political states. Recently, Zschokke and Baur [Zschokke, S., Baur, B., 2002.
Inbreeding, outbreeding, infant growth, and size dimorphism in captive Indian rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis). Canadian journal of Zoology 80, 2014-2023] found that the offspring of matings between captive Indian rhinoceros individuals from the Kaziranga and Chitwan populations had high mortality rates.
These authors suggested that these two populations are partially genetically incompatible and, thus, they proposed that these would be separated into two subspecies. In this study we compiled data from a captive population with data from Dudhwa National Park (India), where rhinoceroses were successfully reintroduced in 1984.