September 22 is officially #World Rhino Day. Rhinos can be found at many larger zoos, and sometimes at smaller zoos. What’s rare, however, is having the opportunity to interact with a rhino. We’ve been lucky enough to do so on several occasions.
Our favorite rhino experience has to be when we had the chance to feed Sam the Rhino at the Chehaw Park Zoo in Albany, Georgia. We had driven 8 hours the day prior, and happened upon the Chehaw Park Zoo’s proximity to our hotel in Georgia. We showed up while the free rhino feeding was taking place. The keepers were super friendly, and not only gave us the opportunity to feed Sam, but encouraged us to build a relationship with him by nuzzling close and touching above his ears. They told us that rhinos are very affectionate animals, which we found to be true. At other zoos, as you’ll see below, we learned about their protective instincts.
At the Great Plains Zoo in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, we were lucky enough to see natural rhino behaviors warning us to stay away. The rhino exhibit at this zoo has plenty of space for the rhinos, and most of it is behind tall grass to give the rhinos privacy. This female rhino was keeping a pretty close watch on her 10-month old baby Komati. Upon seeing us near the exhibit, she charged over near her Komati and shortly after prevented us from taking any further pictures of her.
At the Brookfield Zoo, the rhinos are most active in the evening hours. During the Summer the zoo is open until 9pm on select nights; several times, we observed the male rhino actively pacing in circle track around his exhibit. One evening there was a family being very loud and trying to lean over to take pictures. The rhino was getting aggravated about the commotion, and marked his territory in a way that told us to back off. The other family eventually got hint, not wanting to be in the direction of his next missile.
While few zoos showcase the rhino or allow interactions with them, almost every zoo offers rotating keeper chats for all of their animals. I encourage you to visit one of these to learn more about these animals.
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