South Lakes Wild Animal Park in Cumbria, North West England is
certainly becoming renowned through Europe for our success in breeding Babirusa
(Babyrousa babyrussa) , a very
rare Sulawesi species.
September 2003 saw the first young born here at the park and then first
time mum Kota went on to rear “Sausage” who under the International Breeding
Programme for Endangered Species later moved to Chester to start a family of
his own.
Following that initial success the park had many issues with Kota
killing any subsequent young, common amongst Babirusa. Every Babirusa is vital in the breeding
programme as they are so rare. Only
South Lakes Wild Animal Park, Chester Zoo & Antwerp have been successful in
breeding Babirusa throughout the whole of Europe. So the decision was made by Animal Manager Jo
Dennis to hand rear any future litters.
Nights camping out around due dates were rewarded on 29th
August 2007 when Kota gave birth to twins Nakula and Malu.
Only one other zoo within the European Breeding Programme has ever
successfully hand reared Babirusa and that was Port Lympne in 1996, and
although Jo had very little to go off and weeks of disturbed nights followed
with hourly feeds and growing piglets, after many setbacks and worrying
moments, Jo reared the two piglets to maturity.
Male Malu was moved to Wuppertaal Zoo in Germany to be paired with a
female. Nakula stayed here at South
Lakes and a young male was brought in to pair with her.
On 11th March 2012 Nakula amazingly
produced her own piglet and with all her “NATURAL” instinct began rearing it
herself. The baby, a female, has been
named Cinta (pronounced chinta) which means “love “in Indonesian. At 6 days old she weighed 900g and has
gradually been putting on weight, at her most recent weigh in was a healthy
2.75kg showing mum Nakula is doing a great job.
From today visitors can see mum and piglet Mum
outside in the spring sunshine.
A Fantastic success – for Jo, for South Lakes but most
of all for Babirusa.
Endemic to the
Sulawesi rainforests of Indonesia, the unique tusks erupting from its head
below its eyes, the Babirusa today is close to extinction numbering as few as
5,000 individuals in the wild. The main
threat being the speedy destruction of its rainforest home, and despite legal
protection from Indonesian wildlife law, the illegal poaching for its meat.
