Twenty-one critically endangered black rhinos have been safely delivered to Loisaba Conservancy in northern Kenya from other parts of the country, part of a wider mission to secure the long-term future of the species in Kenya. “It’s been a massive operation,” says Tom Silvester, CEO of Loisaba Conservancy, who oversaw the process. “It’s incredible to see black rhinos back in Loisaba after an absence of 50 years.” Wildlife translocations are usually driven by a need to create new breeding strongholds and return native species to locations where they’ve gone locally extinct. But the primary motivation in this case is the fact that Kenya’s 16 black rhino sanctuaries are running out of space — a sign of a remarkable turnaround in the country. Two flatbed trucks carrying rhinos and a police escort vehicle wind through the hills of Loisaba Conservancy to where the animals will be released. Image ©️ Lewa Wildlife Conservancy/Jeff DeKock. Four decades ago, black rhinos were on the brink of extinction in Kenya, with numbers down from around 20,000 in the 1970s to fewer than 300 in the mid-1980s. According to the last count, in December 2023, there are now an estimated 1,004 black rhinos, with the government aiming to have 2,000 by 2037. “After the big poaching crashes that brought rhinos right down, we’ve reached a point where sanctuaries on government or private land are on or above their ecological carrying capacity,” Silvester told Mongabay. “They’re overcrowded. Overcrowding means you get territorial fighting, bulls killing other bulls,…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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