A white rhino at Utah’s Hogle Zoo in America has been gifted fly masks by equine manufacturer Horseware to help combat her severe seasonal eye allergies.
Princess, who is 46 years old, first started to suffer with the eye allergies in August 2012, and the zoo’s vets were at a loss as to what could be causing it.
A range of treatments were trialled, including eye washes and ointments containing antibiotics, steroids, saline solution and ivermectin. It was Princess’ keepers that came up with the idea to cover her eyes.
“Believe it or not, but many elephant and rhino keepers have a ton of horse experience since these species are managed similarly,” said Lauren LeCoque, elephant and rhino manager.
“They are all hindgut fermenters and can colic as well as suffer foot issues like thrush. So the thought to use a fly mask was pretty instinctual. We contacted a local horse company in Salt Lake City, who eventually put us in touch with Horseware.”
Watch Lauren and her team put the mask on Princess in the video below and explain how they trained her to wear it.
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A ‘very fitting’ pink trim
Princess having her face measured
Acquiring the fly masks was a lengthy process and a number of prototypes were trialled before the design was finalised.
“We had to do a lot of measuring of Princess’ head and shape,” said Lauren, who has worked with this rhino for over nine years.
“Rhinos have extremely long heads compared to most horses — plus we had to account for two horns.
“We love that Horseware made the mask with a pink trim completely unprompted. It’s so adorable — and very fitting!”
Lauren added that Princess is “food motivated” and easy to train. It took a number of months to fully desensitise Princess to the mask and train her to wear it.
Princess’s allergies flare up mid-summer through to autumn time. During these months, zoo keepers put the fly mask on when she comes in for breakfast and take it off in the evening.
“We’ve gone from seeing tons of discharge, redness, itching and sometimes even some bleeding around her eyes, to no symptoms at all now that she wears the mask,” said Lauren.
“It is put on first thing in the morning with her breakfast, and then taken off once the sun goes down. This system has worked well for us.”
Princess lives at the zoo with her half-brother George.
“We were unsure how he was going to react, but surprisingly he was unphased by her wearing it,” added Lauren.
