White rhino, two impalas among 54 babies in 2026 at Florida zoo – Sarasota Herald-Tribune

ZooTampa at Lowry Park is celebrating the birth of a southern white rhinoceros calf and two impalas, just the latest in a series of babies at the zoo.
The rhino, named Malaika, was born on May 28 and weighed around 100 pounds. The name means “Angel” in Swahili. The zoo said in a news release that Malaika is the 11th white rhino birth at the zoo including this calf’s half-sister, Kelele, who was born in March.
White rhinos were once critically endangered but rebounded with about 15,900 animals in Africa as of 2021. But they are frequent victims of poaching for their horns, which sell on a black market in Asia and elsewhere, according to the International Rhino Foundation.
“Although the number of rhino deaths annually has decreased since the most recent peak in 2015, poaching remains the biggest threat to rhinos, and white rhinos in particular bear the brunt,” the federation said on its website.
Impalas are smaller antelopes whose habitat ranges from eastern Africa to southern Africa. During the rainy season, they often gather in large herds of several hundred animals to browse on grass.
The two impalas added to the zoo’s 54 births since January of this year. Those two were born on May 18, named Kendall and Laura Lanya. They both weighed about 10 pounds each.
“This is the first time the zoo has had two impala calves born on the same day,” ZooTampa said in the news release.
ZooTampa is home to about 1,300 animals, many of them endangered species in the wild.
Curt Anderson is the Policy and Politics Reporter for The USA TODAY NETWORK-FLORIDA. You can get all of Florida’s best content directly in your inbox each weekday by signing up for the free newsletter, Florida TODAY, at https://tallahassee.com/newsletters.

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