Rhino images

Last week on the night of Wednesday 7th November, Amber, DJ and Sprinter were murdered. They were three adult black rhino, all shot dead by poachers. Amber was pregnant, due to give birth this week, but her perfectly formed foetus died with her. Their deaths represent a massive blow to black rhino conservation efforts in Zimbabwe.

The black rhino is listed as critically endangered, and is the most highly endangered large mammal on earth - it is being wiped out of existence faster than any other large animal on earth.

Imire Game Farm in Wedza, near Marondera, has been involved in wildlife conservation work since 1972. Whilst the world population of black rhino fell from 65,000 to 2,300 between 1970 and 1994, the Zimbabwe population fell from 2,000 to only 263 in the 6 years prior to 1993. The latest figures for the Zimbabwe rhino population are from December 2005 when there were 527 black rhino and 308 white rhino, but these figures have fallen since then due to poaching. By 1987, a decision was taken in Zimbabwe to move the remaining rhinos from the Zambezi Valley and to relocate them in Intensive Protection Zones. It was a desperate bid to save Zimbabwe’s last black rhino.

Amber, DJ and Sprinter, along with four other rhino orphans, began their new lives at Imire in 1987. They were aged between 4 and 6 months. 20 years later, last week, the three adults were senselessly slaughtered. Internationally renowned conservationist Dr Ian Player, who spearheaded Operation Rhino, an initiative in the Umfolozi Game Reserve that saved the few remaining southern race of white rhino from extinction, was appalled at the news.