Four northern white rhino have been translocated from a zoo in the Czech Republic to a wildlife conservancy in Northern Kenya in an last-ditch effort to save the species that is now extinct in the wild.

Rob Brett, of the World Conservation Union’s (IUCN) African Rhino Specialist group said: “They are listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Moving them now is a last-bid effort to save them and their gene pool from total extinction.”

Although there are eight northern white rhino left in the world, all living in captivity, the four that have been sent to Kenya are the only ones thought to be capable of breeding and so represent the last hope for an animal that was once common across a vast area of Central Africa.

The northern white rhino, one of the two sub-species of the white rhino, was once found across Uganda, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Sudan, before wholesale poaching, exacerbated by numerous civil wars in the region, caused the population to plummet the 1970s and 80s.

The last surviving wild population was located in Garamba National Park in DRC, but none of the five known rhinos have been seen since 2006, which has led to the consensus that the animal is in fact extinct in the wild.

This was a particularly bitter pill for the conservation community to swallow as vast resources had been pumped into saving the species in the wild.

From a low of 15 animals in the early 1990s, intensive conservation efforts and significant donor funds resulted in the population doubling by the end of the decade.

However, the DRC civil war, which continues to the present day,  undermined these efforts and all rhino conservation efforts in Garamba have now been abandoned.

Batian Craig, security manager at Ol Peteja, says that breeding the animals in captivity will be challenging, but a major triumph if the project is successful.

“Everyone of us wants one of those animals to be pregnant as quickly as possible but we’ve got to be realistic about it.”

“We need to introduce them, we need to get them out in the right environment, the right space to start breeding.”

The movement of the rhinos has been met with some criticism, not least at the vast expense of the operation, estimated at US$600,000 over the next three years.

Randy Rieches, of San Diego Wild Animal Park, home to two of the eight remaining northern whites, said: “It makes no sense to move them at this point in time. It’s way too little, too late.”

However, those involved with the project feel passionately that they have to try rather than just waiting for the species to become extinct.

Berry White, a British women who prepared the rhinos for their translocation, said: “I’d say of course there’s a chance. What was the option? That they stay in the zoo and not breed?”

“Yes, of course a lot of money was spent, but people wanted to spend money on this project.”

“The girls have a lot of years left in them. One has bred already. Yes, some people would say it’s a long-shot but not necessarily.”

“Let’s hope in the next five years there’s one or two calves, some build-up,”

By Taylor Turner

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