KEY POINTS:
Auckland Zoo's newest addition 15-year-old southern white rhino Zambezi needed some encouragement to come out of his cargo box yesterday after being transferred by road from Hamilton.
Zambezi, who weighs more than two tonnes, travelled to zoo with two of his young male offspring, Inkosi and Mtoto.
The trio were part of a permanent southern white rhino swap between the two zoos.
Hamilton Zoo yesterday received southern white rhino male Kruger, who travelled by road from Auckland.
The transfer was made in the hope that Kruger will breed with some of the four female southern white rhinos at Hamilton, thus enabling the gene pool to diversify.
But Zambezi, who was mildly sedated for the trip, took a bit of cajoling to come out of his confines.
Zoo spokeswoman Abi Smith said it took about 15 minutes for him to reverse out.
"He needed a bit of coaxing but got there eventually," she said.
"He was food-motivated. We used some lucerne and that did the trick.
"Then he had a good sniff around and checked out his new surroundings."
Ms Smith said about 11,000 southern white rhinos were in existence around the world - a huge comeback from the early 20th century when fewer than 20 had survived.
Auckland's three new rhinos will join the zoo's only other rhino, a male called Mandhla, which is blind.
Having an all-male herd is a rather unusual set-up.
"With the four males, we will be running what we call a 'bachelor herd', which is the first of its kind in Australasia," Ms Smith said.
White Rhinos:
* Are in fact grey, not white. The name comes from the Afrikaans word describing its mouth, "weit" - meaning "wide" - misinterpreted by early English settlers in South Africa.
* Their horns are considered by some to have aphrodisiac and medicinal properties. The hunting of the species for the horn is cited as a cause of its near extinction.
* They are the largest species of land mammal after the elephant, along with the roughly equal-sized Indian rhino.
* They can weigh up to 2700kg and grow up to 5m long and have poor eyesight but extremely acute hearing and sense of smell.
