{"id":280874,"date":"2010-02-04T20:50:07","date_gmt":"2010-02-05T01:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c630a53ef01287765a526970c"},"modified":"2010-02-04T20:47:35","modified_gmt":"2010-02-05T01:47:35","slug":"webcam-viewer-alerts-wildlife-park-staff-to-impending-birth-of-a-white-rhinoceros-calf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/280874","title":{"rendered":"Webcam viewer alerts wildlife park staff to impending birth of a white rhinoceros calf"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Rhino<\/img><\/a> EDINBURGH, Scotland \u2014 Wildlife park employees in Scotland were celebrating Thursday the birth of a white rhinoceros <\/a>— an event they would have missed without the tip of a webcam viewer.<\/p>\n

Blair Drummond Safari Park<\/a> north of Edinburgh was alerted to the impending birth by a phone call from the woman thousands of miles\u00a0away in Cyprus who was watching the rhino enclosure on the Internet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Keepers said the unidentified woman saw that Dorothy’s water had broken\u00a0Dec. 21 after a 16-month gestation. The tip allowed staff to be there to witness the rare event.<\/p>\n

"We don’t know who this woman was, but we are grateful to her. The webcam was like an extra pair of eyes," park manager Gary Gilmour said.<\/p>\n

The female calf — called Ailsa after the park’s only female keeper — was introduced to the media Thursday weighing 330 pounds\u00a0at the age of 5 weeks. She was expected to grow to about 3,520 pounds, like her mother.<\/p>\n

Ailsa was one of eight southern white rhinoceros — which are actually gray — born in captivity in Europe last year. About 11,000 of the endangered animals roam across southern Africa, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. <\/p>\n

The park set up the webcam because staff feared they would miss the birth, which for rhinos usually happen in the early morning. Staff have now installed a second outdoor webcam to allow viewers to watch Ailsa explore her new home.<\/p>\n

— Associated Press<\/p>\n

Keep track of all the animal news:<\/strong> Follow Unleashed on Facebook<\/a> and Twitter<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Photo: Keeper Ailsa West with her rhino namesake on Feb. 4. Credit: Associated Press<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EDINBURGH, Scotland \u2014 Wildlife park employees in Scotland were celebrating Thursday the birth of a white rhinoceros — an event they would have missed without the tip of a webcam viewer. Blair Drummond Safari Park north of Edinburgh was alerted to the impending birth by a phone call from the woman thousands of miles\u00a0away in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4172,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-280874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4172"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280874\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}