Moving a bad-tempered animal that weighs up to 1400 kg is no easy feat. Moving 19 of them 1500 kilometres is pretty damn remarkable. Managing the black rhino populations in Africa has become a serious concern for conservationists, as poaching has seriously affected their numbers in and around Southern Africa. The WWF Black Rhino Range Expansion Project aims to help with conserving these endangered animals, but this most recent part of the project was incredibly difficult, especially because of the long distances involved.
Think of the rhino as the Mr. T of the animal kingdom – if you’re going to move it anywhere, it needs to be sedated, and heavily. Tranquillizing rhinos normally means that there’s a possibility they’ll fall asleep in a remote or inaccessible area, but if they’re being airlifted over short distances to waiting vehicles, that’s no longer a problem. This minimises the amount of time that the animal has to be kept sedated, and avoids the need for travel over rough tracks. Happy rhinos!
Africa has some of the most spectacular game parks in the world, and the more that we do to help these animals, the more we’ll be able to enjoy them. So hug a rhino today. (Just make sure it’s sedated first!)