A second person has been gored by a black rhino in the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Reserve, KwaZulu-Natal nature conservation authorities said on Thursday.
Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife’s Jeff Gaisford said that in the latest incident Mandlenkosi Magubane (33) one of a group of contract workers clearing alien vegetation in the reserve on Monday, went to urinate in a thicket. He stumbled upon a black rhino which attacked him.
Gaisford said the workers had seen the rhino earlier, but waited for him to leave before starting their work.
A spokesperson for Empangeni Garden Clinic, Venessa Fourie, said Magubane was in a stable condition in the intensive care unit on Thursday after emergency surgery earlier in the week.
She said the rhino had punctured Magubane’s back and had several broken ribs.
Two weeks ago Kirsten Bond, a University of Port Elizabeth zoology research assistant, was gored by a black rhino while preparing dung samples in a boma in the reserve as part of the Black Rhino expansion project.
Her family said she sustained multiple trauma to her legs and lower torso. Bond underwent two operations and is on a ventilator in the ICU in a Richards Bay hospital.
Gaisford said the two incidents were ”completely unrelated” and happened 30km apart. – Sapa