After the rhinos were wiped out for several decades in Kenya, the ungulates have now taken their first steps on the grass in the Kenyan national park.
– It has been decades since rhinos roamed here, almost 50 years, the national park’s security director Daniel Ole Yiankere told ABC News.
Conservationists in Kenya celebrate when the 21 rhinos get a new home in the Loisaba Conservancy National Park in Kenya.
The rhinos come from a total of three zoos. Some of them have been moved from Nairobi National Park and made a 300 kilometer journey. Others come from zoos that are somewhat closer, reports say ABC News.
It is the country’s second largest migration of rhinos.
Poacher
Several decades ago, the rhinos were wiped out by poachers. But now the endangered animals can reproduce and increase in population.
“It’s been decades since rhinos roamed here, almost 50 years ago,” national park security director Daniel Ole Yiankere told ABC News.
“The number of rhinos was severely affected by poaching. Now our focus is on rejuvenating this landscape and allowing rhinos to breed, with the aim of restoring their population,” continues Daniel Ole Yiankere.
Was about to be completely wiped out
Kenya has been successful in reviving the country’s black rhino population, which fell from about 20,000 in the 1970s to less than 300 in the mid-1980s due to poaching, according to conservationists the newspaper spoke to.
It was long feared that the animals would be completely wiped out in Kenya. But the country now has about 1,000 black rhinos, the third largest population after South Africa and Namibia.
So far, the Kenyan authorities have relocated 150 rhinos over the past decade. But the threat is not yet over. The goal is to bring the number of black rhinos to 2,000 in the next few years.
“When we have 2,000 individuals, we will have established a population that will give us hope that we have stopped a possible extinction,” said Tom Silvester, CEO of the Loisaba Conservancy.
Today, there are roughly 6,400 wild black rhinos left in the world, all in Africa, according to the organization Save the Rhino.