Sumatran rhino heading home to Indonesia to help save species

A good news for Indonesian as well as the world’s conservation activists and enthusiasts. Indonesia is now preparing to welcome him with the hope that Andalas will be able to carry out his mission.
The Jakarta Post reported:

Andalas, the first Sumatra rhino born in captivity in more than 100 years was now heading home to its habitat on Sumatra Island with a single task — to breed with females and help save the endangered species from extinction.

The 5-year-old rhino, Andalas, was being flown from a zoo in the United States to Jakarta’s international airport. He then is to travel by truck and ferry to a rhino sanctuary in Lampung province, where males Rosa and Ratu await.

Andalas was born in 2001 in the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, the first time a calf was bred and born at a zoo since 1889, when a live birth was recorded at the Calcutta Zoo in India.
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Rampant poaching of rhinos for their horns and destruction of forests for farming and logging has left less than 300 rhinos in isolated pockets of Malaysia and Sumatra, the world’s sixth largest island.

Conservation groups say that saving the Sumatran rhino from extinction is possible, noting that sustained efforts in India and Africa have led to booming numbers of certain species in those countries.

But they say breeding programs and more political will to stop poaching and forest destruction are essential if numbers are to recover on Sumatra, which is also home to endangered tigers and elephants.