Rhino Conservation Botswana are over the moon to announce the recently relocated black rhino population’s first birth in the Moremi Game Reserve, Botswana. Since the start of its Botswana Wild Rhino Project in 2001, there has been a small but extremely dedicated group of people involved in monitoring the rhino populations of northern Botswana.
Wilderness Safaris, in partnership with the Botswana Department of Wildlife and National Parks and major security assistance from the Botswana Defence Force, continue to make strides in stepping up their efforts to secure the survival of the rhino. As we shared this past summer, the company was delighted to announce the successful capture of a small founder population of critically endangered black rhino.
Monitoring black rhinos is not a job for the faint of heart. These magnificent animals are browsers by nature and are particularly fond of hanging out in thick bush that sometimes appear impenetrable, and are certainly not a very natural habitat for humans on foot. It was in one of these thickets that one dedicated rhino monitoring officer and his three Botswana Defense Force companions ventured into in search of a large female black rhino who was known to have a liking for the leaves of the guarri bushes which grew in dense clusters in that area.
Normally, they would have left her alone to get on with her life except for the fact that they knew she was heavily pregnant. With great tracking skills, they managed to locate her right in the very heart of this difficult bush, and to their great joy and excitement, saw that she indeed had a very small calf with her, which they estimated to be no more than a few days old! We look forward to learning more about this baby calf in the months to come.
Background
The re-introduction of a small population of white rhino as well as four black rhino to the Moremi Game Reserve over the last thirteen years has proven to be a considerable success with the white rhinos having increased from twenty seven individuals to over sixty through successful breeding, whilst the black rhinos, with the birth of the calf, now number five animals. Rhino Conservation Botswana was formed with a very clear mandate in mind. To train and properly equip up to five new rhino monitoring teams and to outfit a centralized management and data co-ordination centre to ensure all wild rhinos are regularly sighted and identified and biological data is properly collected, collated, disseminated and stored.
