AS a famous little bear once said, “how lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard."

Earlier this month we waved an emotional goodbye to Little White Rhino Zahara.

Zahra, our princess, was, like Cumbria Zoo Company, born in 2017, she is very dear to the hearts of each and every team member here at the zoo.

Zahra made the 300 and some mile trip to her new home at Marwell Zoo where she has already met her new gal crew Kiri, Sula and Pembe.

Zahra has been matched with male Marwell Zoo White Rhino Jabari by the European Ex-Situ Programme (EEP) – the breeding programme – and will hopefully in the future go on to have a family of her very own.

Southern White Rhinos were almost hunted to extinction by the end of the 19th Century, with a population of only 20-50 individuals remaining, successful conservation efforts have helped numbers recover.

In 2018 the world lost the last remaining male Northern white rhinoceros, Sudan, leaving 2 females - Najin and Fatu - and rendering the species functionally extinct.

Even if rhino IVF becomes a real possibility in the future, it will likely come too late to save this sub-species.

The day we will witness the death of the very last Northern white rhino is only a matter of time.

Southern white rhinos are slightly larger than their functionally extinct Northern cousins, other than that you and I would struggle to see the difference.

What they do have in common are their horns which are attractive to poachers.

One Rhino is killed every 22 hours, 9885 Rhinos have been lost to poaching in just one decade.

We run the real risk of witnessing the extinction of this species within our lifetimes.

We wish Zahra all the best with her new life in Winchester, we know she is in amazing hands and I’m sure she will have lots of visits from Safari Zoo staff and visitors alike to see how she is getting on.