Farewell to Benno, the lonely white rhinoceros always closed in the zoo (which will now end in a museum)

Benno, one of the longest -lived white rhinos in Europe, died at the Natura Viva Park at the age of almost 44. Born in the 1980s in the Knoxville zoo, in Tennessee, he spent a life of continuous movements between different European parks, passing through Halle, Leipzig and Salzburg, before finding a definitive accommodation in Italy in 2012 in Bussolengo, on the banks of Lake Garda.

A lonely life, away from the pack

The aggressive behavior towards the females of its species made it a specimen difficult to manage. Not being able to insert himself in social contexts, Benno tended to vent the stress by destroying objects and rubbing the horn, which came to reduce a few centimeters.

In Italy a tailor -made department was built for him, without other rhinos, but with the possibility of interacting peacefully with antelopes. In this new accommodation, Benno has lived his old age with a certain serenity and his horn has returned to grow up to reach 40 centimeters.

A second life at the museum

After a life without descendants and marked by solitude, Benno died of old age, cared for by the park staff. His skeleton will be transferred to the Museum of Natural Sciences in Turin, where he will continue to “live” as a testimony of his species and the long battle for the conservation of the white rhinoceros, still threatened by the poaching for the illegal trade of the horn.

The price to pay for a life closed in a zoo

Benno’s story invites us to reflect on the role of zoo in the modern world. On the one hand, these places can contribute to the conservation of threatened species. But on the other we cannot ignore the price that many animals pay in terms of freedom, isolation and psychological suffering.

The fact that Benno has found a balance only in the late age, in a department made to measure for him, highlights how difficult it is to reproduce the environmental and social conditions necessary for the well -being of wild animals in captivity.

His aggression, the continuous rubbing of the horn and the impossibility of reproducing are not simple “character defects”, but signals of profound discomfort, often invisible to the public, which show perfectly what a life locked in a zoo far from their habitat means.

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