The Black Rhino Vary Growth Venture (BRREP) has translocated 230 rhinos to create 15 new black rhino populations on websites in South Africa and Malawi over the last two decades.
As a part of its party of Global Rhino Day on 22 September, the Global Large Fund for Nature (WWF) introduced that greater than 200 rhino calves were born on its websites for the reason that first black rhinos had been moved in 2004.
On account of those and different efforts, black rhino numbers have greater than doubled prior to now 20 years from their low level of fewer than 2 500 folks to a more moderen estimate of round 6 200 animals, in step with reliable Global Union for Conservation of Nature figures launched in 2022, the WWF stated in a remark. The black rhino inhabitants used to be estimated at greater than 100 000 about 120 years in the past.
The African continent’s white rhino inhabitants in the meantime has greater via 5,6% to 16 800.
Consistent with figures launched via the Division of Forestry, Fisheries and Setting, 231 rhinos had been poached in South Africa between January and June 2023. When compared with the similar length in 2022, the choice of rhinos poached confirmed an 11% decline.
The primary purpose of BRREP is to extend the numbers of the seriously endangered black rhino. That is completed via shifting a few of them from reserves with present populations to new spaces the place they have got area to reproduce and thrive. This paintings takes position in partnership with Ezemvelo KZN Natural world and the Japanese Cape Parks and Tourism Company.
Dr Jacques Flamand, who has led BRREP since its inception in 2003, stated: “The catalyst for the venture used to be the declining enlargement charge of the black rhino inhabitants in South Africa, with probably the most causes being that they had been merely operating out of appropriate area.”
The venture has additionally observed many inventions for translocating rhinos. BRREP is, as an example, identified for its iconic ‘flying rhinos’, having perfected the method of airlifting black rhinos out of inaccessible spaces via attaching strops to their ft. BRREP additionally holds the most important repository of black rhino DNA profiles on this planet of greater than 300.