Tenth black rhino dies in Kenya after transfer to new park

NAIROBI, Kenya — A 10th critically endangered black rhino has died in Kenya after being moved to a new wildlife park and the sole survivor has been attacked by lions, wildlife authorities said Thursday in what some conservationists have called a national disaster.

The Kenya Wildlife Service’s acting director has been fired and several other officials have been suspended after “clear negligence” was found in the rhinos’ transfer last month from the capital, Nairobi, to Tsavo East National Park Rhino Sanctuary, Wildlife Minister Najib Balala said.

Preliminary investigations show the rhinos died from stress intensified by salt poisoning as the animals struggled to adjust to saltier water in their new home, Balala said.

“The animals were dehydrated, restless” and drinking more of the water only worsened the problem, said Peter Gathumbi, professor of veterinary pathology at the University of Nairobi.

“Shame, shame, shame,” prominent Kenyan conservationist Paula Kahumbu wrote in a Facebook post in which she regretted not questioning the rhinos’ transfer in the first place.

Transporting wildlife is a conservation strategy used to help build up animal populations, and Kenya’s Wildlife Ministry has called the rhinos’ deaths “unprecedented” in more than a decade of such transfers. It has said it transported 149 rhinos between 2005 and 2017, losing just eight of them during that time.