One of the things we've been doing with our time here in South Africa is volunteering at a couple of animal rescue centers. One, that I mentioned in a previous blog, Care for Wild, rescues orphaned baby rhinoceroses. We first heard about Care for Wild when Ari volunteered there for a few weeks during his gap year 6 years ago (where does the time go?). It is about 3 hours away from where we're staying. They are very cagey about their exact location -- as a sanctuary of rhinos, they are an attractive target for poachers. So you won't find their location on their web-site and they ask that we don't post our pictures -- instead we will just link to their social media which shows their work and the adorable orphans beautifully well.
One of their babies is a true, global social media sensation. Well - actually two of their babies - Daisy, the tiny, premature baby rhino thinks she's a zebra. Her best friend, baby zebra Modjadji, thinks she's a rhino. We got to feed them both, weigh them to make sure they're growing, and watch them cavort around together. They are really adorable.
How do rhinos become orphans? Poachers. They kill the moms just to get the horn (even if the horn has been trimmed, they will kill it just for an inch or two) and either they don't bother killing the babies or can't find the babies. Then the rangers find the baby and call Care for Wild who will rush over to pick it up. Usually the baby has been on its own for a few days so is severely dehydrated and malnourished.
We spent 3 days at Care for Wild. It is a very impressive operation. Our main job was feeding the babies. We mixed up baby formula and fed them using 2 liter Coke bottles with big rubber nipples. Each baby rhino gets 2 bottles every few hours. The ones that are a little older get some solid food, too. To do that, we made a mush of feeding pellets with some milk, took a scoop with our hands and made it into a rough ball, then stuck our hands into the rhino's mouth. They have no front teeth; they just use their powerful lips to suck it off our hands. So if we're ever asked if we've stuck our hands into the mouth of a rhinoceros, we can say, "Yes!"
Once the rhinos get older, they are released into the wild of Care for Wild's sanctuary -- they have a large space inside a larger provincial reserve and they are working on expanding. They have heavy anti-poaching security including rangers that walk through the reserve, horseback rangers and K-9 patrols. We got to meet some of the rangers and walk with 2 of the guard dogs. In addition to protecting against poachers, the rangers also monitor the rhinos in the wild. They record when they eat, sleep, etc. and Care for Wild uses this information to help them know what is the right plan for the rhinos they are raising.
Luckily, or more through their hard work, Care for Wild has not had a rhino poached in over 8 years. Because of poaching, rhinos, especially the black rhinos, are very endangered. It seems crazy that these animals are killed just for their horns -- horns that are the same material as your fingernails. They are pretty much gone from areas outside of national parks or other game reserves. At Care for Wild, they told us that they are getting fewer orphans from Kruger each year. This would be good news if it meant that fewer mom rhinos were being killed but, unfortunately, it means that more rhinos are being killed so there are fewer rhinos to have babies. This is even with the rhinos in Kruger (and other reserves around, such as where we are) having their horns trimmed every couple of years.
A quick aside: There is a big debate about what to do with the horns that are trimmed from the rhinos. Trade in rhino horn is illegal. So when a horn is trimmed, it gets recorded and stored away. (The rhino goes on unharmed - the horn grows back over time and needs to be re-trimmed every few years...just like fingernails - and if all the local rhinos have trimmed horns, none are at a disadvantage in their inevitable skirmishes). Some people say that these horns should be allowed to be sold -- they are sustainably harvested, after all. This would do a few things: it would lower the value of rhino horn in the (black) market (supply and demand, Econ 101 stuff) which would make poaching less of a rewarding crime and it would provide some income to reserves with rhinos and provide a bit of income so these places can continue to invest in protecting the rhinos. It may also, possibly reduce the "aura" of rhino horn. Right now, someone who is buying it probably thinks that since it is so expensive, it must be valuable. When it decreases in cost, they may think it has less value. A bit of an esoteric argument. Surely, once the price drops, the demand would increase -- at least in the short run. If that increase is met through sustainably harvested horn, maybe that is ok.
CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, has been agreed to by 184 countries (everyone but North Korea, East Timor, Haiti, South Sudan, Western Sahara and Turkmenistan, as far as I can tell). So getting rhino horn exempted is realistically not going to happen. Although there is a similar debate going on about elephant tusks. So I will leave it to the experts to discuss.
Back from the aside: at Care for Wild, they have been taking care of baby rhinos for long enough that the babies that they first rescued are now starting to have babies. It is a very exciting success story.
During our time, there were about 10 other volunteers there -- most of them staying between 2 weeks - 2 months or even longer. We were lucky that they let us come for just 3 days. In addition to feeding the babies, we also helped bring hay out to some of the bigger rhinos and hang lucerne in the trees for the giraffes. Hard work, but fun. Thank goodness for organizations like this doing this good, much needed, work.
Closer to where we're living, we've been volunteering at the Vervet Monkey Foundation about once a week -- a rescue sanctuary for monkeys. More about that in our next blog.
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