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The experts determined there were no treatment options left that
could maintain Dolly's quality of life, the zoo's post said.
“This is an emotional time for everyone who has cared for and
loved Dolly,” Bill Street, president and CEO of Zoo Knoxville,
said in the post. “She was a remarkable animal, and her impact
on this zoo and the people who have met her is immeasurable. Our
priority was her comfort and dignity, and we take comfort in
knowing she was surrounded by the people who knew her best.”
Dolly was born in 1968 in the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park in South
Africa. She was one of the first white rhinos at the Knoxville
zoo, where she had lived since 1976. The southern white rhino
raised 10 calves throughout her life and could be fiercely
protective of them, in addition to being stubborn, the zoo said.
“But in her retirement years, Dolly has softened considerably.
She fills her days with grazing and good naps in the sand,” the
zoo's website says.
The median life expectancy for southern white rhinos is 36.5
years, according to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.
Though white rhinos are the most common of the rhino species,
their numbers are still shrinking. According to the zoo, there
were about a half-million rhinos worldwide at the start of the
20th century. Today, there are only 27,000 rhinos, about 17,000
of which are southern white rhinos.
Some 10,000 rhinos in Africa and Asia have been illegally killed
for their horns in the last decade, the zoo says.
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