Brookfield Zoo’s longtime resident black rhino euthanized due to kidney disease

“Nakili was a favorite among the animal care staff, volunteers, and zoogoers,” said Joan Daniels, the zoo’s senior director of hoofed mammal care and conservation. (Jim Schulz/CZS-Brookfield Zoo)

Nakili, an eastern black rhinoceros who for decades lived at Brookfield Zoo, was humanely euthanized Wednesday due to worsening degenerative kidney disease.

The 33-year-old pachyderm was the oldest male eastern black rhino living in an accredited North American zoo and arrived at Brookfield in 1994 when he was 4 years old, Chicago Zoological Society officials said.