The African Parks’s largest rhino breeding operation is now a year old.
Through the operation, 2,000 Southern White Rhino, were moved out of the organisation’s farm, to various conservation estates.
The goal of the programme is to rewild these rhino in well-managed protected areas across the continent, to boost local populations and restore numbers.
In the first year of Rhino Rewild, 376 southern white rhino were relocated – 216 within in South Africa and 160 into a staging reserve as the first leg of their journey.
African Parks said the goal is to accelerate the programme with the aim of rewilding 300 rhino per year – that’s almost one per day for the next six years.
Of the six South African destinations, one site reintroduced rhino after a period of local extinction.
These sites are the Munywana Conservancy in KwaZulu-Natal – a collaboration of community and private landowners that include the Makhasa Community Trust, the Mnqobokazi Community Trust and &Beyond Phinda and ZUKA Private Game Reserves; the member reserves of the Greater Kruger Environmental Protection Foundation (GKEPF) in Mpumalanga and Limpopo, which received 120 rhino to reinforce an existing, well-protected population; and Dinokeng Game Reserve in Gauteng, a 19,000-hectare conservation area managed through a unique partnership of 180 landowners and the Gauteng Provincial Government.
Of significance, is the birth of 33 calves born in the wild, proving that these populations are not just surviving – but beginning to thrive.
How to get involved:
https://www.africanparks.org/marking-first-anniversary-rhino-rewild-journey.
Picture: Mikedexterphotography