{"id":695634,"date":"2026-07-16T23:01:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T23:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/695634\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T23:01:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T23:01:19","slug":"highland-wildlife-park-welcomes-adorable-vicuna-as-it-continues-its-baby-boom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/695634\/","title":{"rendered":"Highland Wildlife Park welcomes adorable vicuna as it continues its ‘baby boom’"},"content":{"rendered":"

A vicuna has been born at the Highland Wildlife Park as part of their ongoing \u201cbaby boom\u201d.<\/p>\n

The month-old vicuna, which is the smallest species of camel, has been named Xoco, meaning \u201clittle sister\u201d or \u201cthe youngest child\u201d in the Nahuatl language of central Mexico.<\/p>\n

Xoco was born on June 18 to parents Juanita\u00a0and Austria and is settling in well with the small herd of six vicuna.<\/p>\n

They live within the park\u2019s drive-through reserve, and visitors will be able to see Xoco with mum close by.<\/p>\n

\"Xoco,RZSSXoco, baby vicuna born at Highland Wildlife Park. Image: RZSS RZSS<\/p>\n

Vicunas trace their origins back to South America, specifically the high plains of the Andes mountains.<\/p>\n

Because their natural habitat is so low in oxygen, vicunas have developed larger-than-normal hearts to help cope.<\/p>\n

They are also known for their soft wool, and are the national animal of Peru.<\/p>\n

Xoco\u2019s birth comes amidst a boom for the park with the birth of two new snow leopard cubs back in May, the first cubs in four years.<\/p>\n

Other recent additions to the park include red deer and Himalayan monals.<\/p>\n

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\"WhatsApp<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A vicuna has been born at the Highland Wildlife Park as part of their ongoing \u201cbaby boom\u201d. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-695634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}