Secret rewilding project could save the white rhino
Poachers drove species to the edge of extinction but Duke’s charity hopes to secure its future
Agroup of rhinos rouse themselves as we approach, then trot off through the grass, looking surprisingly skittish for animals the size of a family car.
A hundred yards away, another group sheltering from the sun turn their heads towards us warily. Yet another group, known in collective as a crash, files past in the distance.
There seem to be rhinos in every direction.
In fact, this secret location outside Johannesburg, South Africa, holds an extraordinary 2,000 white rhinos, amounting to as many as one in seven of the world’s population.
Six months ago, the future of this trove of threatened animals hung in the balance. The owner of the 21,000acre Platinum Rhino farm could not raise the money to keep it going, but also could not find any bidders willing to take it on. With the venture in jeopardy, fragmentation of the herd and poaching loomed.
The future of the captive breeding farm has now been secured, owing to its purchase by African Parks, a conservation charity whose board members include the Duke of Sussex.
The purchase has also put the farm’s rhino inhabitants at the centre of one of the most ambitious animal rewilding projects ever undertaken.
The goal of the project is nothing less than to permanently secure the future of the white rhino in Africa.
The new owners hope that over the next decade, they can transfer all the rhinos from the farm into wild spaces across Africa, building enough sustainable populations to put the animals beyond risk of extinction.
If successful, it would mark an extraordinary turnaround for a species that only 90 years ago was on the verge of disappearing.
“This is once in a lifetime,” says the farm’s new manager, Don Jooste, of the scale of the conservation opportunity that the farm represents. “It’s one of the biggest operations, on a species specific level, that’s been done.”
He adds: “What success looks like in 10 years is putting a lock on the gate and knowing that all these rhinos have been rewilded.
“That’s the exciting part of it. It’s unbelievable to see this amount of rhino in an open space, but it would be even more unbelievable to see that last rhino jump off the truck and know that you have put them back into their natural habitat and into a position where they should be.”
The animals on the farm in South Africa’s North West Province are southern white rhinos, one of two remaining subspecies of white rhinos. Their close cousin, the northern white rhino, is functionally extinct, with only two females left in captivity.
Southern white rhinos nearly vanished in the early 20th century. The population fell to as few as 30 or 40 animals in the 1930s until extensive conservation reversed their fortunes. By 2010 the worldwide population had grown to around 20,000.
Sadly much of these gains have been lost since then, because of poaching driven by a demand for rhino horn. Rhino horn is used in some traditional Chinese medicine, and is also viewed as a status symbol in parts of Asia.
Some 12,000 rhinos are estimated to have been killed in the past decade. Four fifths of those remaining are in South Africa, with populations in Kenya, Uganda, Namibia, Zambia, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
African Parks estimates that to secure the future of the species, it needs to build somewhere between seven and 20 robust populations across the entire continent.
The farm’s rhinos will be used to top up and reinforce existing populations, or in some cases as the foundation for new populations in areas where rhinos have been wiped out. There are around 2,000 rhinos on the farm, but when the farm is closed in a decade, the true number to have been put back into the wild may be closer to 3,000.
“It’s a unique story in conservation in Africa today and so much potential, so much hope,” says Jean Labuschagne, director of conservation development at African Parks. “It’s obviously enormously challenging but it’s an opportunity that isn’t easily going to come around again.”
She goes on: “This is a strategic rewilding initiative. We want to basically try and de-risk the species by having seven to 20 key strategic populations, either where we are translocating them to a new area, where there are currently no rhino any more, or supplementing existing populations.”
The farm owes its existence to John Hume, an entrepreneur who built up the herd over 30 years. He had hoped to fund his captive breeding conservation efforts by trimming and selling rhino horn, but ran out of money when he was unable to overturn a global ban on sales.
African Parks declines to say how much it paid Mr Hume, but says it was a small fraction of the initial $10million (£8million) asking price.
Running such a farm is not cheap. It takes 100 staff and significant security spending.
The running costs are estimated to be around £3million per year, while transporting a rhino within South Africa will cost around £1,200, or £4,000 to move one elsewhere in Southern Africa. African Parks manages 22 national parks and protected areas in 12 African countries, getting its money from philanthropists, governments and international bodies.
Last month guards paid for by the charity were accused of raping and beating indigenous people in the Republic of Congo and the Duke of Sussex urged to resign. The charity said it had launched an investigation led by an external law firm and had “a zero-tolerance policy for abuse”.
The animals on the farm have been raised in more intensive conditions than in nature, but are largely wild. Mr Jooste is confident they can adapt to new surroundings.
But to ensure this chance is not squandered, African Parks has to be painstaking. Experts are drawing up a guidelines which will dictate where rhinos can be transferred to and in what numbers. The group has to be confident the new destinations are safe and sustainable.
The first transfers are expected to take place later this year.
This farm is not the only sign of hope in rhino conservation. Last month in Kenya, authorities began transferring black rhinos out of overcrowded parks into new havens. Kenya Wildlife Service will translocate 21 female and male eastern black rhinos to Loisaba Conservancy, in Laikipia County, where poachers killed the last of the species 50 years ago.
Numbers of Kenya’s black rhinos have risen from 240 in 1984 to 966 today.
There has even been a glimmer of good news for the functionally extinct northern white rhino. Scientists in January achieved the world’s first IVF rhino pregnancy. The technique could one day allow the surviving northern white rhino cows to carry embryos fertilised by the species’ males before they died out.
Securing the white rhino will not only save that animal, but will also boost wider conservation, African Parks hopes.
Ms Labuschagne says: “To be able to see white rhino coming back to countries, where you reintroduce a white rhino, that sense of pride, that sense of ownership, that overwhelming excitement at every level of society is so powerful to see.”
‘What success looks like in 10 years is putting a lock on the gate and knowing that all these rhinos have been rewilded’