Veterinary session

According to the official classification of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) three out of the five rhinoceros species existing now in the world belong to critically endangered, one belongs to endangered, and another one belongs to the threatened conservation category, due to the decrease of the natrural habitats, natural disasters, or the effect of poaching and civil wars. Several previously existed species or subspecies are now considered extinct. Consequently the rhinoceros keeping and breeding in the zoos has to undertake a role in conservation biology, maintenance of species and the repatriation to the natural habitat.

Currently three Hungarian zoos are keeping rhinoceroses. Budapest Zoo and Veszprém Zoo both have three Southern white rhinoceroses (Ceratotherium simum simum). Furthermore Sóstó Zoo Nyíregyháza owns also two Indian rhinoceroses (Rhinoceros unicornis) beside their two Southern white rhinoceroses.

During my research I retrospectively collected data on the diseases of the rhinoceroses currently living or used to live in Hungarian zoos, then I compared the resulting data with the – predominantly foreign – literature. Diseases of the integument, digestive system and reproductive tract occur most frequently among the captive rhinoceroses, and on the basis of the Hungarian research we should meet pathological changes of these three organ systems most often.

I elaborated 25 cases in the three zoos retrospectively in the past 10 years. From these, 8 cases occurred in Budapest, 7 cases in Veszprém, and 10 cases in Nyíregyháza. 44% of the collected cases were related with the integument, 32% with the reproductive system, 8% with the digestive system, while the remaining 16% with other organ systems.

To the author’s knowledge, this kind of study has not been published previously in the Hungarian literature.