• News
  • Sport
  • TV
  • Radio
  • Education
  • TV Licences
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
  • SOUTH AFRICA
  • POLITICS
  • BUSINESS
  • SPORT
  • AFRICA
  • WORLD
  • SCI-TECH
  • LIFESTYLE
  • FEATURES
  • OPINION
Home Sci-tech

SA volunteer to keep rhino orphanage going during lockdown

21 April 2020, 5:35 PM  |
Reuters Reuters |  @SABCNews
Yolande van der Merwe kisses an orphaned rhino, amid the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at a sanctuary for rhinos orphaned by poaching, in Mookgopong, Limpopo province, South Africa April 17, 2020.

Yolande van der Merwe kisses an orphaned rhino, amid the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at a sanctuary for rhinos orphaned by poaching, in Mookgopong, Limpopo province, South Africa April 17, 2020.

Image: Reuters

Yolande van der Merwe kisses an orphaned rhino, amid the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at a sanctuary for rhinos orphaned by poaching, in Mookgopong, Limpopo province, South Africa April 17, 2020.

Looking after an orphaned baby rhino is hard work. You feed them bottled milk at all hours, comfort them through constant fear and bereavement and endure long nights of screaming for the absent mother they witnessed being shot dead by poachers.

“The older calves take it really hard. They’ll call for their mothers for up to two weeks,” said Yolande van der Merwe, 38, who helped set up the world’s first such orphanage in South Africa’s Limpopo province almost a decade ago.

“They start bawling and that hits you right in the heart.”

To help manage the workload – “we can easily pull a 72-hour shift with two to three hours sleep”, van der Merwe said – the orphanage has depended on volunteers to fly in from abroad on three-month rotations at the site set amongst thick bush.

So when coronavirus panic struck and the latest three foreign volunteers’ visas were revoked, they were in a bind.

“I was quite worried that we were not going to cope,” she said, after Kolisi and Amelia, seven and four months, respectively, slurped noisily from 2-litre bottles of milk formula she was feeding them.

Manager and founder Arrie van Deventer, a 66-year-old retired teacher, got on the phone and started making frantic pleas on social media for South Africans to help out.

“We were swamped,” he said. He picked two volunteers from the several hundred offers. They are now staying put with the four permanent staff since last month’s nationwide lockdown imposed by President Cyril Ramphosa.

South African Deidre Rosenbahn, 37, had been a restaurant chef in Britain for 14 years and then travelled in Australia, but yearned to return home.

“I came back to the coronavirus. It was hard to find a job, so when this came up I put my hand up,” she said, as she fed their youngest new arrival, Mapimpi, from a bottle.

Poachers killed his mother when he was 7 days old. He was dehydrated and withered – they found him trying to eat sand. Now he seems well-fed, relaxed and playful. At the age of five, the rhinos in the orphanage are released back into the wild.

“We have dozens of rhinos that come through here, and 95% of them are because of the poaching pandemic,” Deventer said. The precise number, like the sanctuary’s location, are closely guarded secrets in order to protect them from poachers.

The game reserve adjacent to the orphanage has been attacked, unsuccessfully, twice.

Africa’s rhino population has been decimated over the decades to feed demand for rhino horn, which, despite being made of the same stuff as hair and fingernails, is prized in East Asia as a supposed medicine and as jewellery.

Share article
Tags: RhinoPoachersOrphanage
Previous Post

Gauteng concerned about increase in illegal land invasions

Next Post

Global hunger could double due to COVID-19 blow: UN

Related Posts

So called "BioNtainers", a container-based production line of mRNA-based vaccines.

‘SA-produced mRNA vaccine more than just a COVID-19 defense’

28 January 2023, 6:17 PM
Sebokeng floods

KZN Shark Board bans bathing at beaches amid cyclone Cheneso

28 January 2023, 12:25 PM
[File photo] Cataracts eye surgery.

Cataract screenings for Touws River residents

28 January 2023, 9:59 AM
The logo of the US Central Intelligence Agency is shown in the lobby of the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

Russia blocks CIA, FBI websites for ‘spreading false information’: TASS

27 January 2023, 7:23 PM
People work at the site after the announcement of the discovery of 4 300-year-old sealed tombs in Egypt's Saqqara necropolis, in Giza, Egypt, January 26, 2023.

Archaeologist hails possibly ‘oldest’ mummy yet found in Egypt

27 January 2023, 3:06 PM
A boy plays with water on a hot summer day.

These groups are the most vulnerable to suffer effects of heat wave

27 January 2023, 11:17 AM
Next Post
Internally displaced families receive food items from Nigeria's Victims Support Fund, as the authorities struggle to contain the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Abuja, Nigeria April 14, 2020.

Global hunger could double due to COVID-19 blow: UN

Most Viewed

  • 24hrs
  • Week
  • Month
  • Scorcher predicted in Northern Cape for two weeks
  • Residents shut down Komani over power woes
  • ANC slams DA’s march to Luthuli House
  • No registration fee will be charged to NSFAS-funded students: Nzimande
  • Limpopo man arrested after discovery of his wife’s body in water-filled pit toilet
  • Parts of the Northern Cape to be exempted from rolling blackouts
  • VIDEO | St Benedict College’s Matric learner gets 11 distinctions
  • Limpopo matriculant from child-headed household attains diploma pass
  • Female circumcision practice thriving in Eastern Cape
  • Premier denies claims that KZN government spent millions on Mampintsha’s funeral
  • Limpopo man arrested after discovery of his wife’s body in water-filled pit toilet
  • Gas leak shut, isolated in Pretoria North
  • Mahlengi Bhengu replaces Pule Mabe as ANC chief spokesperson
  • EFF cuts ties with IFP in KwaZulu-Natal
  • Malema calls on South Africans to reject Just Energy Transition

LATEST

Jacob Zuma
  • South Africa

Decision on Judge Koen on recusal matter in case involving Zuma to be heard on Monday


Models present creations at the Gucci Fall/Winter 2023/2024 menswear show in Milan, Italy January 13, 2023.
  • Lifestyle

Gucci names De Sarno as creative director with the task of reviving the brand


People carry a banner reading " We are also teaching fighting" as school workers demonstrate for better salaries and working conditions, in Lisbon, Portugal January 28, 2023.
  • South Africa

Tens of thousands of teachers march in Lisbon to demand better pay and conditions


The Lebombo Border Post between South Africa and Mozambique.
  • South Africa

Stolen cars recovered near Mozambican border


South Africa's Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor shakes hands with Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, ahead of their bilateral meeting in Pretoria, South Africa, January 23, 2023.
  • Politics

DA slams SA government for defending the military exercise with Russia


Crew members signal to a F/A-18E Super Hornet fighter jet preparing to take off for a routine flight on board the U.S. USS Nimitz aircraft carrier during a routine deployment to the South China Sea, Mid-Sea, January 27, 2023.
  • World

US four-star general warns of war with China in 2025


Weather

  • About the SABC
  • Contact Us
  • Jobs
  • Advertise
  • Disclaimer
  • Site Map

SABC © 2022

No Result
View All Result
  • SOUTH AFRICA
  • POLITICS
  • BUSINESS
  • SPORT
  • AFRICA
  • WORLD
  • SCI-TECH
  • LIFESTYLE
  • FEATURES
  • OPINION

© 2022

Previous Gauteng concerned about increase in illegal land invasions
Next Global hunger could double due to COVID-19 blow: UN