Here’s something you don’t read about every day.
A massive conservation effort is underway to help protect the ailing African rhinoceros population, which is again under extreme threat and teetering on the brink of extinction thanks in large part to poachers.
And part of that effort will see some 80 rhinos airlifted out of the danger zones and relocated here to Australia.
As completely batshit crazy as that sounds, it’s a real thing that’s actually happening. The Australian Rhino Project was founded back in 2013 by South African-born Aussie Ray Dearlove (an excellent surname for a wildlife conservationist to have, in our opinion), and has been hard at work securing the funding required to pull off the ambitious project.
Turns out they’ve been very successful at that, and the first group of six white rhinos (five females, one bull) is scheduled to be shifted to our shores in August.
The idea is to create an “insurance population” for the endangered animals; one that can grow and thrive in an environment free of the threat of poachers, but also one with comparable habitats to their native homelands.
Despite rigorous conservation efforts that revived the population of rhinos in Africa from the absolute precipice of vanishing completely, demand for rhino horns in the illegal Asian market has seen poaching skyrocket by as much as 9,000%. In 2007, just 13 South African rhinos were felled by poachers. By 2014, however, that number had skyrocketed to a staggering 1,215. The numbers are so great that experts are now worried poaching could be reaching a “tipping point,” where the annual kill rate exceeds the annual birth rate.
A rhino’s horn, believed to cure a number of ailments in certain sections of Asian medical culture, can fetch as much as $500,000 each.
Australia’s poaching-free history, strong border and quarantine controls, and comparable natural habitat make it the ideal location for the establishment of a protected rhino population.
The highly delicate operation (that costs in the vicinity of $70,000 per animal) will see the rhinos be taken to the Taronga Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo, where they’ll spend two months under strict quarantine observation. From there, Taronga will utilise the opportunity to create added genetic diversity within the zoo’s own resident rhino population, before the African rhinos are moved to a more permanent settlement, likely in the Monarto Zoo safari park near Adelaide.
Tentative plans also call for future relocated rhinos to be settled in Western Australia, the Northern Territory, New South Wales, and potentially in Queensland.
Dearlove spoke of the project as a matter of necessity, with the total global rhino population down to around 20,000.
“In many ways there shouldn’t be a need for the Australian Rhino Project – that’s the reality. But since that’s the situation we’ve found ourselves in, if we can do our little bit here in Australia – and I think Australians will – then I think that it’s worth doing.”
“I know that six is not going to change the world, but it’s at least six that won’t be killed.”
The first group of six will serve as a test run for the project, to see how the animals cope with relocation. If successful, 74 more animals will be brought out to Australia over the next three years.
Source: Australian Geographic.
Photo: Ian Forsyth/Getty.
