Rhinos Orphaned by Poachers Now Back in the Wild

Text and photos by Natasha Anderson, Lowveld Rhino Trust, Zimbabwe

Natasha Anderson is the Rhino Monitoring Coordinator for Zimbabwe’s Lowveld Rhino Trust, which is supported by the International Rhino Foundation.  In this update, Natasha describes the reintroduction of two orphaned black rhino calves whose mothers had been killed by poachers.

The big day finally arrived. The team started early to avoid any unnecessary unsettling changes in the rhinos’ normal morning routine. Straight after their morning bottles of milk, both rhinos were tranquilized. Once the drugs took effect the capture team moved in, notching both rhinos’ ears for future identification purposes, drawing blood to analyse for health/disease checks, and fitting a horn transmitter to the older Bebrave to aid post-release monitoring.

Loading tranquilized rhino, Bebrave, for reintroduction

All the commotion attracted the attention of the hand-raised eland, Sparky, who had been Bebrave’s companion before Long Playing arrived. Watching all the activity over the fence, the eland was quite unaware that he was to be next, as the plan was to release all three hand-raised animals together since they had been living together for well over a year.

Sparky the eland observing the rhino release from the truck

The drive to the release area took nearly two hours, which is short by normal translocation standards. A quiet water point not normally used by the only other known rhino in the area was chosen in the hope that the two young rhinos will be able to establish new home ranges without disruption. The release went smoothly, the rhinos joining up with each other quickly before quietly walking off down the road – a hugely rewarding sight after a year-and-a-half of daily care.

Bebrave and Long Playing back in the wild

Sparky, the hand-raised eland, was released at the same water point. The hope was that the three friends would re-join each other in the bush. However, it appears that a herd of wild eland came through to drink at the release water point later that same day and Sparky has not been seen in the company of the young rhinos since. Hopefully he is now also back with his own kind.

Sparky the eland returns to the Lowveld

“R” is for Rhinos … and also for Raoul du Toit

Wildlife Heroes by Julie Scardina and Jeff Flocken

In their new book, Wildlife Heroes, authors Julie Scardina (SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment) and Jeff Flocken (International Fund for Animal Welfare) spotlight 40 of the world’s leading wildlife conservationists.  Prominent on their list is Raoul du Toit, the International Rhino Foundation’s Africa Program Coordinator.  Raoul is no stranger to such honors that recognize his commitment to African rhinoceroses, having received the World Conservation Union’s prestigious Sir Peter Scott Award in 2009 and the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2011.

Raoul du Toit – Lowveld Rhino Trust

Raoul was born and still lives in Zimbabwe, a country that harbors the fourth largest populations of both black and white rhinos.    He holds degrees in zoology and environmental studies, but claims to have become involved in rhino conservation somewhat by chance.  In 1990, he established the Lowveld Rhino Conservancy Project, which became the Lowveld Rhino Trust (LRT) a decade later.  The LRT focuses its efforts in two privately-managed wildlife conservancies – Save Valley and Bubye Valley – converted cattle ranches that span a combined area of nearly one-and-a-half million acres and harbor several hundred rhinos, both black and white.  Following a period of intense poaching in the late 1980s, strategic conservation efforts helped Zimbabwe’s black rhino population rebound in the 1990s. Animals were moved from threatened areas to more secure conservancies, and the results are increasing rhino numbers in the Lowveld region, despite the recent rise in poaching pressure.

Lowveld Rhino Trust black rhino immobilization

Under Raoul’s direction and the auspices of Zimbabwe’s National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, Lowveld rhinos are monitored year round.  The goal is to identify every animal, using a system of distinct physical characters, tags and transmitters.  Local teams of rhino trackers work hand-in-hand with wildlife rangers and veterinarians both to prevent poaching and respond to emergencies.  Each year, dozens of rhinos are routinely immobilized for identification purposes or for veterinary treatment, and these procedures involve coordination of teams on foot, all-terrain vehicles, fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters.  In addition, the LRT must also deal occasionally with orphaned rhino calves whose mothers have been killed by poachers.  These animals may require rescue and rehabilitation, but are eventually returned to the wild.

Black rhino mother and calf – Lowveld Conservancies

As a result of all these efforts, the Bubye Valley Conservancy recently witnessed the birth of the 100th black rhino calf since recovery efforts began there 10 years ago.  With the continued success of intensive management efforts, experts estimate that only five years will be necessary for the next one hundred calves to be born.

Lowveld Rhino Trust Monitoring Team

Raoul relies on a very dedicated team of colleagues to accomplish these results.  Australian biologist Natasha Anderson coordinates both monitoring and local education programs, while fellow Zimbabweans Lovemore Mungwashu and Jackson Kamwi serve as operations coordinator and head rhino monitor, respectively.  Their collective work in the Lowlveld receives generous support from a variety of sources including government agencies, international foundations, zoological parks, corporations and individuals.

If you’d like to know more about rhino conservation in Zimbabwe, click on http://www.rhinos.org/zimbabwe-lowveld-rhino-program.

Raoul du Toit and black rhino

Stopping Vietnam’s War on Rhinos

Northern white rhino

Unfortunately, the rhino poaching crisis is nothing new. Throughout history these large land mammals have been subject to periods of unconscionable slaughter at the hand of man.  Of the five living species, four – the white, Indian, Sumatran and Javan – have, at one time or another, been reduced to populations of only a few hundred individuals or less. Perhaps more than any other species on the planet, rhinos define what it means to teeter on “the brink of extinction”.

The rhino’s problem isn’t an albatross around its neck, it’s the horn at the tip of its snout.  For centuries, millions of people in Asia have regarded rhino horn as medicine, and a growing number now consider it a status symbol as well. A Vietnamese citizen will shell out a relatively small fortune for an ounce of powdered rhino horn, but his or her ability to pay the purchase price has little to do with its effectiveness. It’s doubtful that the buyer has any clue to the “price” the rhino had to pay, and that situation must change.

The 16th Conference of Parties (COP 16) in Bangkok, Thailand was recently attended by representatives of 179 CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) signatory countries. Discussions at COP 16 focused on the enforcement of existing wildlife laws and the imposition of international trade sanctions on countries like Vietnam if they do not clean up their acts. In order to curtail the illegal trade in horn, the parties agreed that specialized investigative techniques are necessary and that the problem of money-laundering must be addressed. They also called for consumer research that will help better understand the factors that are driving demand.

TRAFFIC WWF/IUCN Report: The South Africa-Vietnam Rhino Horn Trade Nexus

There are no more wild rhinos in Vietnam

A number of organizations are already working hard to document and analyze the trade that originates largely in the Republic of South Africa – a country that holds almost three-quarters of the world rhino population – and now ends primarily in Vietnam – a country has a rising standard of living but lost its last rhino only a couple of years ago. The International Rhino Foundation will help TRAFFIC: The Wildlife Trade Monitoring Network, translate a comprehensive report, The South Africa – Vietnam Rhino Horn Trade Nexus, and distribute it in Vietnam. Two other non-governmental organizations, Education for Nature Vietnam (ENV) and South Africa’s Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) , are partnering on an anti-rhino poaching campaign that is both multi-media and bi-lingual. Posters encourage consumers to stop the slaughter by not using rhino horn, and to consider the baby rhinos that are orphaned by poaching. An ENV public service announcement supported by Save the Rhino – International and Conservation International’s Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund confronts rhino horn consumers as “ignorant, foolish, backward, cruel and evil”, and hammers home the message that rhino horn is neither status symbol nor medicine.

ENV & EWT anti-rhino poaching poster #1

ENV & EWT anti-rhino poaching poster #2

In 2012, more than 700 white and black rhinos were killed by poachers in southern Africa, 668 of them in the Republic of South Africa alone – a rate perilously close to two rhinos per day – and the slaughter shows need immediate signs of decreasing. Fortunately, up to this point, births have kept pace with deaths, but that situation is destined to change if nothing is done, and experts predict that African rhino populations will begin to spiral downward in only a couple of years.

If you would like to help support efforts to save southern Africa’s threatened rhinos, go to: http://www.rhinos.org/operation-stop-poaching-now.

The Curse of the Unicorn

The Unicorn in Captivity (from the Unicorn Tapestries) – Metropolitan Museum of Art

In his book, The Future of Life, biologist Edward O. Wilson had this to say about the first time he laid eyes upon the rare Sumatran rhinoceros in the flesh: “One of the most memorable events of my life occurred on a late May evening in 1994, in a back room of the Cincinnati Zoo, when I walked up to a four-year-old Sumatran rhinoceros named Emi, gazed into her lugubrious face for a while, and placed the flat of my hand against her hairy flank.  She made no response except maybe to blink her eyes. That’s it; that’s all that happened.  No matter: I had at last met my real-life unicorn.”

The unicorn is an imaginary creature that symbolizes purity.  It was first described by Ancient Greek naturalists as a species that inhabited the distant land of India.  Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD) spoke of the monoceros, “a very fierce animal … which has the head of the stag, the feet of the elephant, and the tail of the boar, while the rest of the body is like that of the horse; it makes a deep lowing noise, and has a single black horn, which projects from the middle of its forehead, two cubits in length.”  Perhaps the Indian rhinoceros comes to mind?

Greater One-horned or Indian Rhinoceros, Kaziranga National Park

The unicorn legend became popular throughout Europe during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.  The creature was said to roam the woodlands and could only be captured by a virgin.  Many people believed that its horn, which was called an alicorn, was an antidote to poison and could be used to treat illness. Alicorns could be purchased from Scandinavian traders, but the price was extravagant – per weight, supposedly many times more than that of gold.  The average alicorn was grooved and about three feet long.  Unfortunately, it never came from a unicorn.  A Dutch physician and naturalist, Ole Wurm, told the world the truth, the alicorn was really the long tusk of the small arctic whale known as the narwhal.  Narwhals are still hunted today for their tusks by certain indigenous populations, but many experts believe that this is not sustainable over the long-term.

White rhinoceros – South Africa

That the rhinoceros might be likened to the legendary unicorn is not so far-fetched, certainly no stranger than ancient sailors believing that hefty, whiskered sea mammals like dugongs and manatees were really mermaids.  Rhinos are distant relatives of horses and the horns of some rhino species can grow quite long.  So, with a dash of imagination and perhaps a pinch of intoxication, a person viewing a rhino could conjure the image of a unicorn in his mind, although that transformation would seem to be a bit easier with several of the antelope species, such as the oryx, that sport spectacular horns, albeit in pairs and from the top of the skull instead of the nose.

Arabian oryx – United Arab Emirates

Like the unicorn’s unusual appendage, the rhino’s horn also was once believed to detect and neutralize poison, and it is still believed by many Asian people to have medicinal properties.  As a result, white and black rhinos in southern Africa are now being killed by poachers at the rate of almost two per day.  If such slaughter continues, decades of dedicated efforts to bring these species back from the brink of extinction will have been for naught.

Unicorns never existed, but rhinos can and must survive as living legends.

If you’d like to know more about what the International Rhino Foundation is doing to combat poaching in southern Africa, go to: http://www.rhinos.org/operation-stop-poaching-now.

Just Browsing!

Sumatran rhino (Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary,Indonesia) – a browser

Rhinos are broadly split into two categories – grazers and browsers – based upon their style of feeding and the types of food they eat.  Grazers prefer grasses and typically feed low to the ground.  Browsers favor leaves, twigs and hanging fruits, which often focuses their attention above eye level.  Grazers might be likened to lawn mowers, heads held low and broad mouths sweeping the ground.  Browsers are more like pruning shears, with narrower, prehensile lips reaching upwards into the trees.

White rhinoceros (Lake Nakuru National Park, Kenya) – a grazer

The wide-mouthed white rhino of Africa is the consummate grazer.  Short grasses are its favorite foods.  The greater one-horned or Indian rhino is more difficult to categorize – sometimes a grazer and other times a browser.  It likes tall grasses, but also consumes leaves, branches and submerged aquatic plants.  The black rhino, which may share African grassland or savanna habitats with its white rhino cousin, is a browser that consumes significant roughage, like the thorny branches of acacia or fleshy plants like euphorbia that produce noxious chemicals.

Whistling acacia – Masai Mara, Kenya

Euphorbia – Serengeti National Park, Tanzania

Tropical forest species like the Javan and Sumatran rhino are obligate browsers, surrounded by a diverse buffet of leafy plants.  Hundreds of species comprise their diets.  At the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary, where the resident rhinos have access to large forest enclosures in which they’re free to browse (the verb), the animals are also given more than two dozen different kinds of browse (the noun) every day.   Their eclectic diet includes wild relatives of species like coffee, rubber, breadfruit and poinsettia.  They also seem to favor the aromatic leaves and bark of species related to common herbs and incenses – basil, mint, rosemary, sage, frankincense and myrrh.  Some Sumatran rhino food plants are known to be excellent sources of vitamin C.  Others produce toxic alkaloids that have been used by traditional hunters to produce arrow poisons.   How they know which ones to choose and how much of each to eat is still to be learned.

The Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary (SRS) is a center for managed breeding and research located in Indonesia’s Way Kambas National Park.  To learn more about how the SRS contributes to the survival of this critically endangered species, go to: http://www.rhinos.org/sumatran-rhino-conservation-program.

“R” is for Rhinos: Home Range

“R” is for Rhino … and also for Home Range.

Whether a rhino lives on the African Serengeti, in the foothills of the Himalayas, or in the dense tropical forests of Java and Sumatra, it inhabits what wildlife ecologists refer to as a home range.  This is the area in which it must find all the food, water, and shelter necessary to survive, as well as locate members of the opposite sex in order to reproduce.  Sometimes the home range of one individual will overlap with those of others.  In other cases, one rhino will defend part or all of its home range from intrusion by other species or members of its own kind.  Biologists refer to this defended area as a territory.

The size of a rhino’s home range varies from species to species, from one habitat type to another, from one season to the next, and even between the two sexes.  Field research results also can be mixed depending upon the study methods used and the way in which the home ranges are actually mapped.  However, it appears that the rhino species with the most compact home range may be the greater one-horned or Indian rhino, which prefers wetland habitats in river valleys.  Studies conducted in Nepal’s Royal Chitwan National Park indicate that the average annual home range of a female is slightly less than four square kilometers (about 1,000 acres) and that of a male slightly more.  Studies also show that Indian rhino ranges expand during periods of drought, when animals have to travel further to find food, and shrink during the monsoon season, when increased rains produce lusher, denser vegetation.

Larger home ranges are more common among the two savanna-dwelling African species – the black rhino and the white rhino – and the two tropical forest-dwelling Asian species – the Sumatran rhino and Javan rhino.  Home ranges of female Sumatran and Javan rhinos usually don’t overlap and may cover between eight to 15 square kilometers.  Male home ranges of these same two species tend to be significantly larger, perhaps 15 to 50 square kilometers, and are much more likely to overlap.  Some of the largest home ranges measured are those of black rhinos inhabiting the vast Serengeti.  In fact, it’s not unusual for an individual to roam an area of more than 100 square kilometers. The abundance of waterholes, wallows and salt-licks factors into home range size as much as food availability.

Rhinos typically mark their territories with urine and dung, as well as by scraping the soil with their hooves and rubbing trees with their horns.  Some concentrate their dung in piles called middens, which serve as natural “street signs,” while others kick it into the air to better disseminate their unique scent and advertise their presence.  Given a rhino’s notoriously poor eyesight, the use of olfactory cues helps avoid aggressive encounters.

“R” is for Rhinos: Radio-telemetry

“R” is for Rhinos, and also for …. Radio-telemetry.

The technology known as radio-telemetry enhances our ability to track and monitor rhinos.  The principles of radio-telemetry are essentially the same as listening to a radio news broadcast.  A small portable transmitter – think of it as a miniature radio station – emits radio waves that travel invisibly through the air, are picked up by an antenna and channeled to a receiver.  However, instead of commentary, music or advertisement, the transmitter emits a series of beeps – or is it bleeps?  Either way, the sound emitted by each transmitter can be set to a different frequency, allowing the listener to tune in to a specific one and determine from which direction the sound has originated.

Wildlife biologists routinely use radio-telemetry equipment to pinpoint the location of animals that are otherwise difficult to find and track.  More often than not, the transmitters are attached to collars that are specially designed not to restrict, hinder or harm but, depending on the target species, sometimes the transmitters can be attached to or imbedded in the animal’s body itself, such as in the dorsal fin of whale or the horn of a rhino.  As they say, “This isn’t rocket science,” but developing technologies should allow field researchers to gather more important information about the animals they study.

Two IRF projects employ radio-telemetry as standard practice – monitoring programs for translocated black rhinos in Zimbabwe’s Lowveld conservancies and for reintroduced greater one-horned rhinos in Manas National Park as part of the Indian Rhino Vision 2020 initiative. In Zimbabwe, more use is made of transmitters that can be placed inside a small cavity drilled that’s drilled into the rhino’s horn after it has been immobilized. Black rhinos have two relatively large horns, so the size ratio of horn to transmitter favors this strategy.  By comparison, the word “greater” in greater one-horned rhino refers not to the size of the horn, but to the bulk of the beast, and its relatively smaller horn is a less favorable site for a radio transmitter. Consequently, reintroduced rhinos in Assam, India are fitted with special, flexible radio-collars. The science is the same, but there are practical differences to consider.  At the end of the battery’s life on a radio-collared rhino, the animal has to be immobilized a second time to remove the collar, which poses some risk to the rhino. A horn implant, by comparison, simply “grows out’’ of the horn after about three years.

By radio-tracking rhinos that are also individually identifiable by sex, size, scars, ear-notches and ear-tags, wildlife biologists are able to continuously monitor their movements across large areas. For example, black rhinos released in Zimbabwe’s Bubye and Save Valley Conservancies can conceivably roam over more than a million acres.  On the other hand, greater one-horned rhinos in Manas National Park may tend to concentrate their activity close to the park perimeter and perhaps cross over into unprotected territory. In either case, rhino rangers and park guards must monitor their whereabouts to protect them from the threat of poachers.

A new approach to rhino radio-telemetry is currently being tested in southern Africa – attaching transmitters to ankle bracelets. Although these transmitters are relatively large, they add the capacity to relay positions via satellite links. Some wildlife biologists remain wary of their use, due to the risk of lesions to the rhinos’ legs or because the units can be damaged if the rhinos bash them against rocks or trees. Another new approach is RFID (Radio-Frequency IDentification) transponder technology, which allows smaller devices to be used. This is currently being tested in an International Rhino Foundation project in Zimbabwe, as well as in Namibia.

By experimenting with new ways to track and monitor these impressive creatures, rhino conservationists will gain a better understanding of their ecology and behavior, and hopefully will become more adept at protecting and rebuilding rhino populations.

For more information about Indian Rhino 2020 and the translocation of Greater one-horned rhinos in Assam, please watch the video below.

Looking Back on 2011 – Zimbabwe Reflections

Back in mid 2008, the year in which poachers killed a staggering 16.6% of the black rhino population in the Lowveld conservancies, a black rhino cow called Teressa and her two month old calf Joseph narrowly escaped becoming part of this tragic statistic. An incursion by rhino poachers had been detected in Bubye Valley Conservancy and as part of the follow up Lowveld Rhino Trust rhino monitors checked on all the rhinos in that particular area. Teressa was found unable to stand due to a bullet wound to her right shoulder – she had been shot with a silenced 30 caliber rifle. Not able to get to water or  food sources, Teressa and her calf would have died without urgent assistance. Teressa was immobilized for treatment and then moved with her calf into bomas so she could rest and recover.

Two-month-old black rhino calf 'Joseph' in the boma with his mother 'Teressa' - August 2008

Teressa struggling to move to water in the boma - August 2008.

Unfortunately the combination of being shot , lacking food and water for two days and experiencing the additional stress of the immobilization resulted in Teressa producing less milk than normal and young Joseph became distressed and lost weight as his hunger increased. It took many hours of patient effort  for a handler to coax Joseph to take milk from a bottle inserted through the wall of the pen in which he had been confined with his mother, who was remarkably tolerant of this human intrusion.  The success that was achieved through this human-rhino interaction meant that Joseph could be left with his mother rather than being separated for hand-rearing.  Three weeks later, Teressa was able to walk normally again, her milk production had returned to normal and the pair were released back into the wild together.

Teressa and Joseph were released from the bomas in September 2008.Routine rhino monitoring patrols confirmed that Teressa and Joseph continued to do well after release.

In November, Teressa gave birth to a new calf.

By December 2010, Joseph had grown into a strong sub-adult.

In November 2011, Joseph, now three and a half years old, was found back with his mother and his now-one-year old little sister.

Teressa and Joseph are just two of many rhinos which have escaped death and continued on to help their species fight against extinction. Black rhino cows Sinikwe and Juliet both suffered bullet injuries and lost their calves to poachers in separate attacks in early 2009. Fortunately their bullet wounds were not severe and both females recovered well and have since given birth to new calves. Mazda, another black rhino cow, was shot in the hind leg by poachers in late 2010. Mazda’s made a full recovery and gave birth to her next calf in March 2011.

Sinikwe and her 2011 calf.

Over 30 black rhino births have been recorded in the Lowevld conservancies in 2011. Over the same time period poachers have claimed a known 13 black rhinos in the same areas – a loss of 3.4% of the Lowveld black rhino population.

We would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to everyone who does what they can to help rhinos in their fight against extinction and may we all have a peaceful and productive 2012.

Calf in pool of water.

Namibia Black Rhino Study

Dr. Robin Radcliffe of the International Rhino Foundation’s Rhino Conservation Medicine Program led a team of scientists from Cornell University, the Palm Beach Zoo and the Medical College of Georgia to Namibia for the first-part of a two-year Morris Animal Foundation-funded Project to study the respiratory and thermoregulatory patterns of black rhinoceros during field capture.  This work was made possible through a collaborative effort with the Namibian Ministry of Environment and Tourism’s Rhino Capture Unit under the direction of Pierre Du Preez and Mark Jago with support from rhinoceros expert, Pete Morkel.

Etosha National Park spans the northcentral and northwestern portion of Namibia and encompasses a diverse landscape of mixed acacia thorn scrub, open plains and mopane woodland, all of which surrounds the vast Etosha pan.  This oasis in an otherwise arid land abounds with wildlife including lions and leopard, giraffe and zebra, oryz and gazelle, and both black and white rhinoceros. Here in the jewel of Namibia lies one of Africa’s largest populations of the endangered desert black rhinoceros – Diceros bicornis bicornis.  It was here that we came to study and learn about the rhinoceros.  Capture and anesthesia of rhinoceros across Africa has been practiced for half a century and the principles of field anesthesia have been well established.  Yet for all of this pioneering work there remains a dearth of scientifically based information on the most fundamental aspects of the anesthesia process in these prehistoric beasts.  Our team was a rare mix of zoological and field veterinarians (Robin Radcliffe and Michelle Miller), University veterinary medical professor (Robin Gleed) and University human medical professor (Art Taft).  Our group, funded by the Morris Animal Foundation, the International Rhino Foundation, Cornell University and the Palm Beach Zoo in partnership with the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, was in Namibia to begin a multiyear investigation looking into some of the most challenging aspects of rhinoceros anesthesia:  How much air does a rhinoceros breath?  What volume of air is moved in and out and what portion of that volume is contributing to gas exchange?  How does ventilation and perfusion change with posture?  These are a few of the many questions the team set out to answer.

Dr. Pete Morkel (right) shares a laugh with Dr. Mark Jago (left) as helicopter pilot Jhanny looks on from the controls of the Bell Jet Ranger.

In just over two weeks the Ministry of Environment and Tourism Game Capture Unit immobilized twenty-eight black rhinoceros for routine ear-notching and radiotelemetry work; data collection was conducted opportunistically on twenty-six animals.  Blood samples were collected at regular intervals to measure blood gas and chemistry values in free-ranging animals under anesthesia.  At the same time, in a subset of animals, the team collected the first in depth data on core ventilation parameters including tidal volume, minute ventilation, and dead space.  These measurements will help the scientists make informed decisions about the effects of potent opioid anesthetic drugs and how posture may alter the respiratory and cardiovascular systems; such data may help devise better ways to manage rhinoceros during capture and anesthesia in both the field and zoological setting.

Dr. Robin Gleed prepares to measure the expired gas of a black rhinoceros as rhino expert Pete Morkel monitors anesthesia.

Dr. Robin Gleed readies the “Hamster Run” for gas collection in a black rhinoceros.

Of course, the scientists met with a number of obstacles along the way.  The first was the numerous challenges of conducting work under difficult conditions.  The team rented a Land Rover TD5 from a tour vehicle company based in South Africa (Kwenda Safari of BushLore – make a note not to rent a 4×4 from this company!).  Upon arriving in Windhoek, the team was disheartened to discover that their expensive Land Rover was not at all what was promised.  The vehicle had seen heavy use and was in disrepair.  The entire morning of the first day and half of the next were devoted to replacing broken parts – a dead battery that repeatedly failed to start, leaking oil from the engine case, and no air conditioning were a few of the shortcomings noted.  With the vehicle finally starting on two salvaged batteries from another, the team could not wait for further repairs so they began the trek 500 kilometers to the north of Windhoek to Etosha National Park.  In the coming weeks we would discover a host of other problems with the Land Rover including two spare tires with only three nuts between them (like many of the other key parts on the vehicle the spare wheels had been salvaged from another vehicle and the rims would not accept the nuts on the other wheels), a host of blown fuses that shut down key systems including the head lights, windshield wipers, refrigeration and the like.  On one wild chase through the muddy Etosha pan following the capture team at high speeds we could not see through the windshield at all until Art Taft changed a few random fuses on the fly.  On another occasion when the fuses did solve the problem and splattered mud covered the windshield, Dr. Morkel stuck his head out of the Land Rover while we crashed through fender high brush on the way to a stumbling rhino.  We made it there in record time too!

Dr. Robin Radcliffe and Art Taft measure the mean expired carbon dioxide of a rhinoceros breath.

Despite all of the challenges of keeping pace with a game capture unit in the wilds of the African bush, the investigation went remarkably well.  The gas collection apparatus designed and built by Dr. Robin Gleed of Cornell University worked extremely well and proved suitable for field collection of minute ventilation in recumbent rhinoceros in the field.  The apparatus, consisting of large four-inch PVC pipes in the shape of giant candy-cane was soon dubbed the “hamster run” because Pierre Du Preez pictured his son fancying such a system of pipes for his pet hamsters.  The gas collection apparatus was simple in that it had no moving parts and no electronics, but its function was no less impressive.  The simple design of pipes separated by a series of one-way valves allowed the investigators to completely separate the inspired air from expired air.  In this way, the team was able to collect the entire volume of air that a rhino breaths out over a minute (minute ventilation).  Together with a variety of other data collected simultaneously, this information will help us determine the precise breathing patterns of recumbent anesthetized rhinoceros.

Dr. Michele Miller running a blood gas on the iSTAT.

The adventures of a rhinoceros veterinarian and his work around the world will continue in future episodes both in Namibia where the team will return in 2011 and also in Sumatra where the International Rhino Foundation and its partners celebrate a pregnancy in one of the rarest rhinos of the world!

By Dr. Robin W. Radcliffe

Rhino Photo of the Week

Rhino Feed

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/