Photo by Julian Hahne
It was almost nightfall by the time the dehorned black rhino was spotted in the rocky outcrops of the Babanango Game Reserve near Vryheid in KwaZulu-Natal.
Armed with a tracking device, wildlife monitor Tumelo Sathakge prepared to head out on foot into the Big Five game reserve to locate the critically endangered adult, one of four black rhino orphans translocated to Babanango in 2022.
“We did spot her this morning and we decided not to disturb her and leave her,” he said. “Unfortunately with black rhino, they are not an easy animal to see along the roadside as they prefer the dense bush areas. To see them, you need to walk in, not with the wind direction, but the wind must come to you otherwise they’re going to pick up your scent easily.”
Minutes later, Sathakge and a colleague successfully led the game-drive vehicle to the black rhino. For his efforts, Sathakge ended up being chased into a nearby tree.
Babanango’s team of wildlife monitors like Sathakge are the “real rhino whisperers”, according to Ursina Rusch, the population manager of WWF’s Black Rhino Range Expansion project (BRREP).
“They spend every day in the field with these rhinos,” she said. “They know them so well and they know when you can approach them and which ones are going to be more amenable and which ones are not.”
In 2022, as part of its ambitious and complex rewilding project, Babanango became home to a small number of dehorned black rhinos under the BRREP. In March this year, the game reserve welcomed its first black rhino calf.
The 20 000 hectare game reserve is the result of a partnership between communities with land ownership rights and investors, ”who recognise the importance of sustainable conservation practices in support of people and the planet”, according to Babanango.
‘Huge personalities’
The BRREP works to increase the growth rate and numbers of the imperilled species by expanding the land available for their conservation to create new breeding populations. Only about 6 200 black rhinos remain in the wild in Africa.
The project was initiated by WWF South Africa and Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife in 2003. Its pioneering work has resulted in 17 new black rhino populations — Babanango was the 15th — with 360 000ha of rhino habitat under its custodianship.
Over the past 20 years, more than 200 calves have been born on BRREP sites. According to the WWF, black rhino numbers have more than doubled in the past two decades, from their low point of fewer than 2 500 individuals before the turn of the century.
While black rhino may have a reputation “for being grumpy”, Rusch pins it down to their more territorial, inquisitive natures. “You can ask any of the black rhino monitors; every black rhino has a different character.
“They all have their little quirks and things. You get black rhinos that all they like to do is chase people up trees, and you get the ones that don’t quite come and lick your bumper.
“What is great is that between all the rhinos that we move to project sites, we always end up getting one or two rhinos that are quite chilled and quite open. And, that’s what makes for fantastic game viewing.”
Wrestling rhinos
People mistakenly believe that the BRREP team spends its days out in the bush, wrestling rhinos and airlifting them. Not so, said Rusch. This only happens for a couple of weeks each year.
“To get a BRREP site up and running from when we first identify a site and we talk to the landowners, until we move the rhino, can be anywhere from one to three years and sometimes up to five years. We make sure the fencing and the security is in place, so it’s a long process.”
More and more, finding large tracts of suitable, secure land is becoming difficult. “We’re starting to really struggle to find these large tracts of land in South Africa that have the right habitat for black rhino to live in, that are secure enough, and where they have the space to grow as well.”
Black rhino need space: the BRREP calculates at least 1 000ha per rhino upon introduction. “So, we’re looking at tracts of land, if possible of at least 20 000ha, which is a huge amount.”
Because white rhino are grazers, “you can pretty much stick them anywhere in the country where there’s grass”. Black rhino are browsers. “They need thickets, the right tree types and the right plants in these thickets for them to eat so that automatically limits where in the country you can put black rhino.”
Keeping them safe from poaching syndicates is a “massive amount of work” for landowners and a huge financial outlay “to the point where rhino are becoming a liability to have”, she added.
All this means that the BRREP is now looking at moving black rhinos out of the country. “There’s a population in Malawi, and we’re looking at moving black rhinos to Zambia and to Mozambique,” Rusch said. “Even with the 17 BRREP sites themselves, we’re getting to a point now where we can start looking at managing the metapopulation, especially genetically, so we can start moving rhinos between the sites.”
Poaching pressure
Dehorning is part of a suite of tools to keep rhino safe, coupled with tight security and good community relations, among other things.
In KwaZulu-Natal in recent years, the epicentre of rhino poaching was the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park until it recently dehorned its remaining rhino to limit poaching.
“The poachers are going to look elsewhere in the landscape and elsewhere in the country,” Rusch said. “In the beginning, before the Kruger and Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park were dehorning, if Kruger would start stepping up security — get in an extra helicopter, night-vision capabilities — you would start seeing the poaching pressure increasing in iMfolozi.
“iMfolozi would respond and start increasing their security and then you would start to see them [organised poaching syndicates] migrate to the Eastern Cape. It would up its security and you would start seeing pressure more in the Kruger again.
“These poachers don’t go away just because you’re dehorning or increasing security. They get pushed through the landscape and that’s exactly what’s happening now with the dehorning,” she said.
Saving a species
While there are numerous organisations and entities focused on poaching, it’s just as important to manage and grow the rhino populations that remain, Rusch added.
“If you don’t manage and grow what you have properly then what are you going to be left with in the long term? I suppose it’s a contribution to saving the species in a different way.
“If you talk to people involved with BRREP, they always say they love working with BRREP because it’s a positive story. For once, you’re not dealing with post-mortems, with death and crime scenes. You’re dealing with translocating rhino, and growing their numbers and watching little ones grow up.”
There are two ways of saving any species: reducing the mortality rate but also growing numbers. “We’re fortunate enough that we get to be on the growing-the-numbers side,” she smiled.
Very often, Rusch is asked how she continues to do this work, with its bleak aspects, tirelessly, for years. “Definitely, poaching is depressing and losing rhino, it’s not a nice thing to get that phone call. But on the other hand, as a population manager, I get the numbers in from the BRREP sites every six months and I get to tally up all the calves that have been born and see the numbers grow.”
When the sites report back every six months, “we always have more animals on the BRREP sites than the last time”.
The goal is to grow on average across all 17 BRREP sites at 5% a year, a target that is reached annually — and even surpassed. “And, that’s testament to the sites and how well they look after the rhino, both managing them, growing the populations and protecting them.”
Sheree Bega was a guest of WWF South Africa at Babanango Game Reserve.