Kenyan Wildlife officials have begun a relocation operation for endangered black rhinos. The operation is aimed at creating a more secure and suitable habitat for them.
Trackers were fitted on the tranquilised animals’ tusks before they were loaded onto flatbed trucks, using cranes.
Kenya Wildlife Service will move 14 black rhinos in total, eight from Nairobi and six from Lake Nakuru National Park to Tsavo East National Park rhino sanctuary, located in south east Kenya.
The black rhino is a critically endangered species while the white rhino is near threatened.
So, operations like this one are warmly welcomed. The three-week exercise, creating a new sanctuary for the rhinos was launched by Kenya’s Tourism Minister, Najab Balala.
“We have reduced numbers from 101 black rhinos because Nairobi National Park, its capacity cannot hold many rhinos, that is why we have created a new sanctuary in Tsavo. We are going to relocate six more black rhinos from the Nakuru National Park and the total of black rhinos we have in Nakuru National Park is 76. So we are going to get six from there so that we can maintain 70, and because Tsavo National Park is huge. It is almost 19 000 square kilometres, that sanctuary is big so we will slowly be relocating more rhino in that area,” says Balala.
The move is also part of a conservation strategy to increase the black rhino population, which stood at 745 at the end of 2017. Poaching has risen in recent years across sub-Saharan Africa where well-armed criminal gangs have killed elephants for tusks and rhinos for horns that are often shipped to Asia for use in ornaments and medicines.
Just last month, three black rhinos were killed in Kenya’s Meru National Park.
