Five Black rhinos released in Serengeti

Friday, May 28th 2010

Five Black rhinos are released in the Serengeti in the 'most ambitious' relocation of large mammals project ever. The illegal trade in rhino horn in the 1960s & 70s pushed this rare species to the brink of extinction. From a peak population of more than 1,000 in the Serengeti area in the middle of the last century, only two females remained by 1991.

Conservationists, concerned that the Eastern Black Rhinoceros would be wiped out in East Africa, moved seven of them to South Africa in 1964, where they thrived in private game parks. Now, they are returning home for the first time.

Three female and two male Rhinos were airlifted from the South African conservancy to Tanzania's Serengeti National Park. They are the first of 32 of the animals, which will be flown home over the next two years as part of the Serengeti Rhino Repatriation Project, all direct descendants of the seven evacuated 46 years ago.

"It is the largest amount of such animals ever to be moved so far," said Alistair Nelson, program manager for the Frankfurt Zoological Society, which oversaw the relocation.

Conservationists estimate that there are fewer than 4,300 black rhinos left alive in the wild, down from a peak of 65,000 in the middle of the 20th century. Only 33 currently live in the Serengeti ecosystem, meaning the population will have almost doubled when the current repatriation project is completed in 2012.

Unfortunately the threat of poaching is still as real as ever with six black rhinos killed for their horns in neighbouring Kenya in the last 12 months. Hence measures have been put in place to prevent Tanzania's new arrivals from suffering the same fate. An elite force of 24 rangers, drawn largely from the Tanzanian National Parks Authority, has been specially trained to monitor the rhinos, which will have GPS chips inserted in the horns so conservationists can track them.

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