It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a…rhino?

Back in 1997 I had the great pleasure of traveling to Africa with my family. It was an aspiring wildlife biologist’s dream come true – incredible animals everywhere. There were surprise lessons to be learned every which-way. For example, did you know that there are three species of zebra? That was news to me and I spent the rest of the trip trying to identify which species I was looking at (plains, Grévy’s, or mountain) every time we encountered a herd.
Another fun fact I’ll never forget: there are two species of rhino – white (square upper lip) and black (pointed upper lip).

© WWF-South Africa /Green Renaissance
More recently I have learned that black rhinos are critically endangered. WWF has a conservation initiative called ‘The Black Rhino Range Expansion Project‘ which has recently had rhinos flying through the air (very safely) to establish populations back in their natural habitats. Recently, 19 rhinos were moved from the Eastern Cape (South Africa) to a new location in Limpopo province.
So why are these rhinos flying upside down for 1500 km trips? It is a new capture technique that is actually gentler on darted rhinos than transporting them in trucks or airlifted in nets. Suspending sedated rhinos by their ankles shortens the time they have to be kept asleep and doesn’t compromise their breathing like nets do.  The new transportation method typically only takes about 10 minutes and there is no harm to the animals!

And where are they being taken? Poaching is a huge threat to these rhinos, so they are only taken to project partners whose land has very strict security systems. “Translocating rhinos always involves risk, but we cannot keep all our eggs in one basket. It is essential to manage black rhino populations for maximum growth as it is still a critically endangered species and this is what the project does by creating large new populations which we hope will breed quickly,” explains WWF’s project leader, Dr. Jacques Flamand.
Next time I’m in Africa (I say that with fingers and toes crossed), I’ll play it cool if I see a rhino flying through the air… and now you can too!
Watch a great video of this airlift here: https://tinyurl.com/bql75z8