Sumatran rhino hair
This week’s photo is by Stephen Belcher, taken at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in April 2009. The Sumatran rhino, also called the “hairy rhino” because of its hairy body and tufted ears, is the most endangered of all rhinoceros species because of its rapid rate of decline.
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II
Shutter: 1/320 sec
Aperture priority
f/7.1
ISO 400
Stephen Belcher
http://www.stephenbelcher.net/
Sumatran rhino "Emi" and calf "Harapan" at Cincinnati Zoo
This week’s photo was taken by Jennifer Hoban on May 26, 2007. Photo submitted by rhinoceros enthusiast, Tracy Sterling.
Location of photo: Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens; Cincinnati, Ohio
Camera settings: automatic
This is world-famous Emi, a Sumatran rhino, and baby, Harapan, her third calf, born April 29, 2007 at just under one month of age. Emi’s first calf, Andalas, born Sept. 13, 2001 was the first Sumatran rhino bred and born in captivity in 112 years, since 1889. Her second calf, Suci, was born July 30, 2004. Sadly, Emi passed away on Sept. 4, 2009 at 21 years of age.
Website/blog link: www.cincinnatizoo.org
Rosa at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary
Photo taken by Stephen Belcher at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Way Kambas National Park in Sumatra Indonesia, April 2009.
Camera Settings:
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II
1/250
Shutter Priority
4/4.0
400 ISO
Lens: 17-40mm
I was lucky enough to get permission to visit the SRS (Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary) in April 2009.
A hot sticky rain forest may seem like the last place to find a distant relative of the woolly rhino but here I was in Sumatra listening to the cracking of branches as it moved towards me. As it got closer I remembered what Inov my guide from the IRF (International Rhino Foundation) told me earlier, this rhino had broken the arm of the IRF president a month earlier. Being stuck knee high in mud doesn’t leave much room for manoeuvring so I just stayed still. Out of the thick forest in front of me emerged a female Sumatran rhino, she stopped and raised her head to smell the air and them moved towards me. Thinking this was a good time to get out of the way of an inquisitive 400 kg rhino I made for the nearest tree and stood behind it. As she moved passed she looked like she had a size too big a suit of skin. The Sumatran rhino has a distinct skin fold over its shoulders and the skin seems to almost ride over the body. Using her strong legs she pushed back into the jungle.
An unique feature about the Sumatran Rhino is that it is very vocal. They make 3 distinct calls. Eeps, whales and whistle-blows. The “whale “ call is so named because it sounds like the call of a humpback whale (Perhaps another name for these small-endangered rhinos might be the Humpbacks of the Jungle). I can vouch for this personally. One rhino, Rosa (a female wild rhino at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary) will do this for sometime and I was able to call back to her while trekking and photographing her in thick jungle, holding a “conversation” with her for more than 30 minutes, something I didn’t expect to be able to do! The purpose of these calls is not fully understood, they are most likely to help the rhinos communicate with other individuals (they are solitary animals) in the thick forest.
Stephen Belcher
www.stephenbelcher.net
Rosa Enjoying Her Lunch
I had the chance to take a picture of Rosa while she was browsing in the forest in the SRS breeding area.
Photo taken by Inov, IRF’s Indonesia Liaison on April 29 at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary.
Camera: Samsung S760, automatic settings.
This week’s photo is by Flickr member Meghana from Pune, India.
The photo was taken on 7th Jan 2007 at Pabitora wildlife preserve, Assam, India.
Caera settings: Yashica Electro GSN rangefinder, ISO100 colour negative film. F/1.7
This was clicked early in the morning at around 7 AM in the eastern state of Assam in India. We were on elephants to see the majestic Indian Rhino. Pabitora is a small sanctuary as compared to the bigger Kaziranga, and there has been no poaching there since the last 2-3 years.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/draconianrain/
http://vividvibes.blogspot.com/
This week’s photo is by Anne Makaske.
Photo by Ann Makaske
Photo taken on 27 september 2007 in South Africa at Chitwa Chitwa Game Park.
Photo settings: Nikon D200, ISO250
1/500, f/4.0, 70-200 mm
This picture was taken in the early morning hours in Chitwa Chitwa. It’s a private game park bordering to the famous Krugerpark. Like us, the guide was delighted to spot a rhino with calf. The day before, following a sky black with vultures, we had discovered the decaying corps of a rhino in a dried riverbed. Five young ‘crazy’ male lions were feeding on it and the guide told us how weird it was for lions to kill a rhino. He suspected the animal to have been ill or wounded. We actually checked for the horn to be intact. It was.
“Alive is better then death” was his short conclusion when we saw this happy family. Me and my nose couldn’t agree more.
Anne Makaske
Originally uploaded by There can be only one Rob!
This week’s photo is by Flickr user Rob Wakefield of Stirling, Scotland.
Location: Lake Nakuru, Kenya.
Camera Settings: Auto – I used a compact. It was closest to hand at the time.
The story is that we were on safari in Kenya for our Honeymoon having just been married six days previously (hence I wasn’t wanting to spend too much time faffing around with cameras and the compact was close to hand). We had been given our own private safari van because we were honeymooners, and our driver had taken us to Lake Nakuru on our way to the Masai Mara. I’m still not sure if it was a detour but it was the only place with Rhino that we went to. It was amazing and well worth it if it was a detour.
Hassan Sachedina
On Sunday, November 1, Hassan Sachedina dipped the back tire of his bicycle in the chilly waters of the Pacific at Encinitas, California to begin a quest to save one of the world’s most endangered species.
It was the start of RhinoRide, Hassan’s quest to cycle across half of America to raise awareness for African rhino conservation.
A Kenyan-born PhD trained environmental manager with extensive conservation field experience in Tanzania and Kenya, Hassan’s self-funded ride raised more than $4,600 for rhino conservation (http://www.firstgiving.com/rhinoride), exceeding his original goal of $4,200 – one dollar for every black rhino left in Africa.
Unseasonably cold weather – at least for Texas, and for someone riding a bicycle across the Lone Star State – forced Hassan to end the ride in Del Rio, short of his planned stop in San Antonio.
Over more than 4 weeks and 1,200 miles, Hassan averaged 52 miles a day over some of the most demanding terrain imaginable. Over the Davis Mountains of West Texas Hassan found “..places (where) the hills were so steep that my front wheel was moving so slowly that my speedometer read zero for periods of time.”
In the small West Texas town of Kent, Hassan bedded down for the night in what he described in his RhinoRide blog as a ‘burger van”, a small trailer known to the regular customers in Kent as ‘Burgers-n-More.’ The hamburger grill kept the ‘burger van’ toasty warm as the outside temperature dipped below freezing over night.
It was an incredible adventure and one you can share when you visit Hassan’s RhinoRide blog at http://www.rhinoride.org/. And you can find out about RhinoRide, Part Two when you follow Hassan on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HSachedina.
Originally uploaded by adamo2o2
This week’s photo is by Flickr user adamo2o2.
ate of photo: 24 October 2006
Location of photo: Longleat safari park
Camera settings: Olympus E-500 (1/500) f/5.6150 mm ISO100
This rhino was grazing at longleat as we were driving around the safari park.
Originally uploaded by runfreefall
This week’s photo is from Alfred Payne, Johannesburg, South Africa.
The photo was taken on September 23, 2009 at Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.
Camera settings: auto
Visited a nature farm in Northern Zimbabwe, close to Vic falls where a couple of black rhinos were being prepared for transport out of the country because of the situation there, others were planned to be released on the farm at a later stage.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/runfreefall/
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