2/3/2024 0 Comments Eastern black rhinocerosAnd while it is now illegal to trade black rhino horn internationally, the scale of their persecution across Africa has meant that a large proportion of the black rhino remaining now reside in reserves and sanctuaries to offer as much protection as possible. For centuries, rhino horn has been used in traditional Asian medicines – believed to contain almost magical healing properties – and is, pound-for-pound, more valuable than gold on the black market. While to many of us it beggars belief, as with the other four species, the main threat facing the black rhinoceros comes from poachers. I’ve got an eight-year-old and a three-year-old, and to think that when they’re my age they’ll live in a world where there are no wild rhinos is just baffling.’ There are thousands of people working to protect rhinos, and we are just a small piece of that huge jigsaw, but if we, as a race, don’t do something they will disappear. The last male northern white rhino died this year, but it didn’t make the headlines. But we all know who is on I’m A Celebrity or Love Island, and we all care about Teresa May and Brexit. ‘Did you know that a rhino became extinct this year? No-one does – because It doesn’t make good TV. And, in fact, conservationists have predicted that within the next 15 years all five species of rhinos will be gone in the wild. What is really shocking is that if we do not reverse the trend for rhinos in general, within our lifetime they will disappear. One step before ”extinct” is “critically endangered”. On a sliding scale, at one end you’ve got “not threatened” – so, for example, the domestic dog – and at the other end of the spectrum is “extinct”, and we all know what that word means. ‘There are two species in Africa, white and black. ‘There are only five species of rhinos remaining, because we have decimated the populations,’ explains Ross. ![]() While the persistent efforts of conversation programmes across Africa (and beyond) have meant that their numbers have since risen slightly to a current population of somewhere between 5,042 and 5,458 individuals, the black rhinoceros remains, officially, only one step away from extinction. Since the 1970s, the global population of black rhinos has declined by a staggering 96 percent – plummeting from 70,000 individuals recorded in 1970 to just 2,410 in 1995. And, as the increasingly precarious status of the black rhino population proves, this type of conservation is not only admirable but very necessary. Already the co-ordinators of the global studbook for white rhinoceros, the zoo applied for the European Endangered Species Programme-certified Black Rhino Breeding Programme five years ago in order to develop that commitment by providing for a second species at the park. She’s four now, so she’s getting to be a big girl, but that is her character and hopefully she’ll always have that fun, sightly mischievous side to her.’įlamingo Land are heavily invested in rhino conservation. We would often find, if the other rhinos were lying down, Olmoti would climb up on top of their backs. She was always winding her mum up and winding up Chanua, the other female, who has become like a big sister to her. ‘Well, I say tiny, she was maybe a couple of hundred kilograms! But like any young animal, she’s full of life, full of energy, playful and a bit mischievous. While she was born in Zurich Zoo, Olmoti has spent most of her life in Malton – having first arrived at Flamingo Land in September 2015, with her mother Samira, as a playful, mischievous nine-month-old who knew how to make an entrance, how to wind her fellow rhinos up, and how to get her own way. It’s challenging because, as we have just done with Olmoti, it often means moving animals great distances across Europe, but it gives us that larger gene pool and the support of lots of different zoos contributing to populations.’ It’s about not putting all your eggs in one basket, so to speak. You don’t want to breed animals that are too closely related because that can lead to genetic issues long term. ‘It’s not a big population, so it needs to be managed very carefully. ‘There are less than 100 black rhinos in European zoos,’ explains Ross Snipp, Zoo Manager of Flamingo Land. ![]() ![]() Olmoti’s first step has been to leave her North Yorkshire home for Dvur Králové Zoo in the Czech Republic, a zoo which already has experience of returning rhinos back to Africa, and where she is set to meet the four other black rhinos who are to be her companions in the move – all having been carefully selected to ensure continuing genetic diversity within the park’s black rhino population. Four-year-old Olmoti has recently left her home at Flamingo Land to embark upon a year-long expedition that will culminate in her arrival at Rwanda’s Akagera National Park – a varied 112–hectare domain encompassing woodland, swamps, low mountains and savannah that is home to giraffe, lions, zebras and elephants.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |