{"id":188337,"date":"2025-12-17T14:10:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T14:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/188337\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T14:10:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T14:10:10","slug":"auckland-zoo-euthanises-elderly-rhino-zambezi-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/188337\/","title":{"rendered":"Auckland Zoo euthanises elderly rhino Zambezi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Naylor said as Zambezi was approaching the end of his natural lifespan, vet and keeper teams have monitored him very closely in recent years.<\/p>\n

\"VeterinarianVeterinarian Adam Naylor said Zambezi’s condition made it difficult for him to eat.
\nPhoto \/ Facebook \/ Auckland Zoo<\/p>\n

\u201cAs part of his care, he has received regular health assessments with the support of veterinary dental specialists. Dental disease is a common age-related health issue in rhinos; a result of continuous chewing and years of cumulative wear, particularly in long-lived individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naylor said that euthanasia before Zambezi started to suffer was the most humane option.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s never an easy decision to do this, and one we never take lightly, but, by acting now, we have been able to give him a peaceful and dignified end to his life.\u201d<\/p>\n

With adult female Jamila, he had three offspring: females Nyah (5) and Amali (3), and male Zuka (1) at the zoo.<\/p>\n

Last week, the zoo euthanised its last subantarctic seal.<\/p>\n

It said it could not maintain the environment needed for the 20-year-old named \u014crua, who was nearing the end of his lifespan.<\/p>\n

\u2013 RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Naylor said as Zambezi was approaching the end of his natural lifespan, vet and keeper teams have monitored…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,15453,118273,111,43,139,69,71217,118274,3651],"class_list":{"0":"post-188337","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-auckland","9":"tag-elderly","10":"tag-euthanises","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nz","15":"tag-rhino","16":"tag-zambezi","17":"tag-zoo"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}