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TEARS OF RHINO IN SOUTH AFRICA
By: Phung My Trung (Vncreatures.net) and Dang Linh Huong (Traffic)
Part I: Greetings, beautiful South Africa !
Part II: Live capturing rhino for … protection
Part III: Rhino releasing…
Part IV: Tears of rhino or human crime
Part IV: A shameful misleading belief
LIVE CAPTURING RHINO FOR … PROTECTION
We welcomed a new day in the iMfolozi game reserve when the sun was still sleepy. Today would be a special day for us since we would have a chance to join the live capture of black rhino for protection. This is an extremely valuable experience for anyone who works for conservation in Viet Nam.
It’s spring, the coolest season of the year, however, the spring morning in South Africa greeted us with a dry, hard cold. The iMfolozi game reserve locates a few hundred kilometers away from the sea then the humidity is very low. Dry and cracked skin started to appear on our hands, legs, and faces - visitors coming from tropical climate region.
“Live capturing Rhino” by… helicopter
Excited with the thinking of facing with black rhino, I even made some confusion when preparing my belongings for the trip. After almost an hour of travelling by car, we arrived to the extraction site. Everyone was here and ready for the capturing, from veterinarian, conservation workers, researchers to helicopters and specialized vehicle to carry rhino. Reporters from VTV1, Green Renaissance Film Crew, Africa TV… were also ready with necessary equipments to record valuable documentary. Everyone had his/her own purpose but we found one thing in common that we all looked forward to having a productive and successful capturing trip for black rhino.
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Dr. Jacques Flamand – Director of the Black Rhino Range Expansion Project (BRREP) (of WWF) disseminated information relating to the rhino capturing activities. His audiences were members of the group coming from several Asian countries who paid a very close attention to his speech. Despite being almost 70 year old, Dr. Flamand looks very energetic, active, and healthy. We named him as the “God Father” since he is the big boss here.
Box:
Dr. Jacques Flamand also shared with us: “The WWF’s the Black Rhino Range Expansion Project was approved by the government of South Africa to operate in three years but after the effective and successful completion of the project, the government decided to grant permission for WWF to continue to implement this project. Over the last 10 years of implementation, hundreds of black rhinos have been moved to new habitats and there have been 45 baby rhinos were born. Despite the difficulties and hardship, we are so pleased to continue the work. Our hard work is paid back by receiving reports that somewhere in the new habitats, several baby rhino individuals are born, contributing to the growth of rhino species in our country.” |
It was the first time I flew by helicopter, I was a bit scared and thrilled since today, it was windy in the desert. The four-seat helicopter was shaking when took off. The South African typical bush plants forming a line that stretches endlessly to the horizon.
Herds of Blue wildebeest - Connochaetes taurinus, African buffalo - Syncerus caffer, African bush elephant - Loxodonta africana with hundreds of individuals were freely moving in low hills. Group of African lions - Panthera leo were lazily lying under the tree watching the familiar helicopter and were not even bothered by the noise it made that interrupted the peaceful and quiet environment. The nearby river is Umfolozi – the sacred river of the indigenous Zulu tribe. The river peacefully flows through the land where extensive wild species are living together and the land that has symbolism and legendary myth of Zulu tribe inherited through generations “only Zulu tribe and wildlife have the right to settle in this river”…
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After several flying rounds, we spotted two black rhinos having their breakfast in a huge bush. Our helicopter descended and chased the bigger rhino to a clear area so that our colleagues with special equipment could approach it. The black African ranger sitting next to me quickly aimed his tranquilizer gun out of helicopter door. The gun shook a bit and the tranquilizer dart accurately hit the rhino butt. Later, I learnt that he was professional shooter and has successfully been performed this work to hundreds of rhinos.
Hit by tranquilizer dart, that black rhino ran with amazing speed into dense bushes. But after just several minutes, it went down due to the drug took effects. After getting signal from the helicopter, conservation workers on the ground quickly moved to the area where the black rhino lied motionless.
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Tagging microchip for conservation
With a professionalism manner, conservation workers cleared the surrounding small bushes and put ear buds for the rhino since ears are the most sensitive parts of this pre-historic animal. Then they cover his eyes, sprayed water on his body, applied purple medical drug on its scratching skins,… Veterinarian took samples of blood, tail hair, skin, and horn for DNA analysis. These DNA samples play very important role in comparing with rhino horns seized from poachers to identify the original location of poached rhinos. Microchip expert started drill two holes deep inside the big horn (front horn) to tag two microchips so that people can track his location as well as his travelling pattern after being released into a new habitat. When being asked about the procedure of injecting lethal and poisonous drug into rhino horn, Dr. Jo Shaw said: "The protocol procedure is relatively similar to the tagging microchip procedure. Doctor will drill a small hole that goes deep into the horn then inject an extremely poisonous drug to prevent poaching. This kind of drug does not spread into rhino body since there is no blood vain in the horn transmitting the poison. The drug will only exist within the protein keratin substance in the horn and that injected rhino horn will be painted in red to warn poachers”. After the work completed, that black rhino would be moved into a specialized vehicle to be transported to its new habitat located several hundred kilometers away from here.
Since the joints of frontal shoulder bones of rhino are very weak then conservation workers could not drag him into the back of specialized vehicle, they had to wake him up. The veterinarian gave him a shot in the main blood vain located in the outer edge of its ear. People counted to 20, it was the time for the drug took effect. As soon as he woke up, everyone pushed, pulled, and tasered him in the back to force him move into the back of the van, there was no single chance for him to move back.
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Everyone who was unauthorized or did not have experience had to move away to prevent danger that might occur. However, due to my curiosity and excitements, Dr. Jacques Flamand made an exception to allow me to participate to the job with other conservation workers. This was the very first time in my life, I physically touched on a living rhino and his huge horn. It was a very special and unique feeling since the following days, I had more chances to contact with many other rhinos, but only with painful emotion.
Mission completed. Everyone were so excited despite it was over 40°C. We went back to the helicopter and continued searching for other black rhinos. In case there was rhino that was shot down by tranquilizer gun at the location where the specialized vehicle could not access then a huge-size helicopter would be dispatched to lift up the rhino to proper location for conservation worker to proceed performance. Looking at a huge rhino was being airborne by a big helicopter, we admired the professionalism, dedication, and commitments of our South African colleagues.
Our “live capturing trip” finished at 1 p.m. Rhinos were tagged with microchips, taken blood samples for DNA, and ready to be taken to their new habitats. Everyone was tired and hungry, lunch was quickly prepared for people to recharge energy then we still had to release rhinos to a private game reserve, where we visited on the first day arrival to South Africa, located several kilometers away from here.
Box:
Dr. Jo Shaw (Coordinator of WWF Rhino conservation program) told us: “South Africa assigned a tremendous budget for environment and wildlife protection, especially black rhino species although the country has been facing with many social issues such as poverty reduction and slum resettlement… however, due to the number of black rhinos that has been killed reduce from 100,000 individuals to only about 2,400 individuals in 1995. As such, we have to invest in so much effort to conservation. We have been trying to raise awareness for people to understand that rhino horn does not have the ability to cure cancer, and the substance containing in the horn is just similar to the one in your finger nail or hair, no more no less”. |
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