Originally Posted by wrinklearthur
Reply With Quote
[QUOTE=Scallops;2086841]Neil,
- I would have thought, dear chap, that any Black Rhino in your environs would be anything but imaginary, let alone anything one might wish to attack! /QUOTE]
Dan,
Hello again.
It's Friday.
It occurred to me that I hadn't effected closure on the black rhino topic from the last foray at Marondera - so here it is:
Attacked merely with a camera and tame to boot. But it is the first of the species that I have actually seen despite years of looking; and the fact that I patted one of them probably makes it a bit like shooting fish in a barrel.
These are three black rhino - all were orphaned through poaching and are guarded 24/7 by a ranger(s) armed with either an FN semi-auto or AK47. The female in the centre had both parents actually killed on the reserve, but is pregnant which is the long awaited event for the conservation team.
The horns are regularly pruned with a chainsaw to try to remove their commercial value, but in some reserves this means little because the poachers shoot them anyway to avoid spending days at risk (shot on sight - no ifs' or buts') tracking something that is nominally "worthless" - also they hope the authorities will decide the de-horning is ineffective and leave them intact.
This particular rhino is the one that is included in the so-called hunting big five and is obviously not a "black" animal. The name is to differentiate it from the "white" rhino (below) which also is not a "white" animal either.
The bigger white or "wide" mouth rhino (the curse of Afrikaans) is the more common one encountered in the bush and is a herbivore with a wide mouth and different teeth arrangement to the black rhino which is a browser and has prehensile lips - top photo. The black rhino is reputably the more aggressive, although this is a matter of degree and makes little difference if one is chasing you........
Nature.
Cheers,
Neil
Bookmarks