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The Park: Exploration - White Rhino Relocation 2/3 Advisory | Exploration | Map | Restcamps | Sections | Statistics | The Park The two rhino's that they had sedated were going to be relocated to one of the other National Parks in South Africa because there were too many white rhino's in that part of the KNP (the south). I asked the rangers what National Park they would be relocated to. According to one of them it would probably be either Pilanesberg or Hluhluwe, but they weren't sure. What they were sure about was that the rhino's would be moved to the holding area in Skukuza for the time being. From there they would be moved to their final destination as soon as a decision had been made on where to move them to.
At the same time that the rhino was being checked for pregnancy blood samples were being taken and the containers in which the rhinos would be moved were being unloaded. One of the major problems in this operation is to get a heavily sedated rhino weighing some tons to stand up. To make this a bit more easy holes were dug next to the rhinos legs. By doing this it was possible to push the rhino in such a fashion that it was no longer on its side but more or less lying on its belly. This sounds easy, but believe me its not. It took six men just to get the rhino to lie on its belly rather than its side. After this had been accomplished the next step was to get the rhino to stand. To get the rhino to stand an antidote was injected into the rhinos ear. This antidote cancelled the effect of the sedative (at least partly). To persuade the still partly sedated rhino to stand the rangers use big yellow 'sticks' that give an electric shock (see picture on the left). This is very effective, but I don't think Greenpeace would approve. It's kind of sad to see a big animal like that shake each time that it gets an electric shock. It might not be the most pleasant method to see, but it was effective because (after another dose of antidote) the rhino got up and started to move into the container that had been placed in front of it. Unfortunately the cloth that was over the rhinos eyes moved when the rhino was halfway into the container. Because it had been administered two doses of antidote it was just a bit to awake and it was not amused. It tried to back out of the container and all hell broke loose. Everybody ran to the other side of the container to help the people already there to pull the rope that had been fastened to the rhinos horn. As I had nothing better to do, and was scared shitless, I decided to help them on the rope. This however means that I don't have pictures of the panic that broke loose. My wife shot some amazing video footage though. Previous page < 1 | 2 | 3 > Next page
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We
decided to stay with the group that was preparing the mother rhino for transport
as the main body of rangers and veterinarians stayed with this rhino. One of the
first things that happened was that this rhino was checked for pregnancy (see
picture on the right). It turned out that she wasn't pregnant by the way. I have
no idea why this was important to know, and I didn't think of asking them at the
time (yes, pretty stupid...). 