Queenie is the newest addition to the Rhino family at Cotswold Wildlife Park & Gardens. She is the ninth White Rhino calf to be born at the Burford collection and is Monty and Nancy’s fifth breeding success together. Visitors can see the newborn daily from 10am in the solar-powered Rhino House or the large Rhino paddock overlooking the Manor House.
This year marks Her Majesty The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee year. To celebrate this unprecedented anniversary, an apt name was chosen for the new calf. Reggie Heyworth, Managing Director of Cotswold Wildlife Park, explains: “We feel very lucky to have another baby female Rhino, which is our fifth female baby in a row. All the Rhinos here are named after very special people and I think everyone agrees that 2022 will always be special because of Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee. I thought it might be a bit presumptuous to call our new baby ‘Elizabeth’, so I have christened her ‘Queenie’ instead. I think it is a perfect name for a young lady Rhino!”
The Queen’s Grandson, Prince William, is Royal Patron of UK based conservation charity Tusk Trust (which Cotswold Wildlife Park supports and works closely with to protect Africa’s many threatened species). Reggie Heyworth is a Tusk Trust Ambassador and ran the 2021 London Marathon in aid of the charity. For more information about Tusk Trust, please visit www.tusk.org.
Award-winning photographer Rory Carnegie captured stunning images of Queenie on camera just after she was born. Keepers also filmed the young calf tentatively taking her first steps just after her mother Nancy gave birth.
Queenie isn’t the only royal-related birth at the Park. Louis, our new male Bactrian Camel, has just become a first-time father. He was named after Prince Louis of Cambridge as they were both born on the same day. His as-yet-unnamed calves (one pictured with mum Chloe) are the first Camels to the born at the Park since 2018. The wild Bactrian Camel (Camelus ferus) is classified as critically endangered by the IUCN and is thought to be one of the rarest large mammals on earth.
You can visit the new arrivals at:
Cotswold Wildlife Park and Gardens
Bradwell Grove
Burford
Oxfordshire OX18 4JP
| Day Ticket | E-Ticket | |
| Adult | £17.50 | £16.00 |
| Children (0-2 years) | FREE | FREE |
| Children (3-16 years inclusive) | £12.00 | £11.00 |
| Senior Citizens (65 and over) | £12.00 | £11.00 |
| Dates | Opening times | Closing times |
| Summer Hours (British Summer Time) | 10.00 am | 6.00 pm Last admission 4.00 pm |
| Winter Hours (GMT) Closed Christmas Day | 10.00 am | 4.00 pm Last admission 3.00 pm |
Summer Hours (BST)10.00 am6.00 pm
Additional information on Rhino’s
- Monty and Nancy are both fifteen years old. In 2009, Nancy (along with another female called Ruby) made the eleven thousand kilometre journey from Mafunyane Game Farm in South Africa to the UK to join young male Monty at their new Oxfordshire home.
- Females only reproduce every two-and-a-half to five years, so the window of opportunity for successful reproduction is limited. After a gestation period of sixteen to eighteen months, a single calf is born. Weighing approximately 6-7kg at birth, newborns put on roughly 1.5 – 3kg a day in weight.
- These iconic animals were once the rarest of any Rhino species and were on the verge of extinction in the early 1900s, when it was believed only twenty to fifty animals remained in their native African homeland. Thanks to excellent and sustained protection, they are now the most common of the five Rhino species. Three of the five Rhino species – the Black, Javan and Sumatran – are critically endangered. The Sumatran Rhino is now presumed extinct in the wild in Malaysia according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
- White Rhinos (Ceratotherium simum ssp. simum) are the largest of the five Rhino species and range throughout the grassland of Southern Africa.
Additional information on Bactrian Camels
- Cotswold Wildlife Park is committed to the breeding programme for Bactrian Camels and proudly supports the Wild Camel Protection Foundation (protecting the critically endangered wild Bactrian Camel and its habitat in the fragile and unique desert ecosystem of the Gobi desert).
- Bactrian Camels were considered extinct in the wild until an expedition in 1957 sighted a small herd on the Mongolian slopes of the Altai Mountains. Today, it is believed that fewer than 1,000 wild Bactrian Camels exist.
- Camels have one of the longest gestation periods for a land mammal. The Elephant boasts the longest of nearly two years, but Camels aren’t too far behind with a gestation period of approximately 360 to 440 days.
