The Return of Rhinos to North Luangwa National Park

Forty years ago, Zambia had the third largest black rhino population in Africa: around 12,000, with 4,000 of them in the Luangwa Valley. 

Twenty years later there were none. 

They were declared extinct in Zambia in 1998. 

They had been poached out of existence in the 1970s and 1980s to meet illegal commercial markets. 

They were wanted as horns for dagger-handles, and the Chinese Medicine Trade has an immense and expanding appetite for them. Rhino horn is believed to help relieve fevers and disorders of the blood; it’s not used as an aphrodisiac, though the myth dies hard in the West.

 So how long do you have to wait for a flight of rhinos?

The answer is five years. They came in not under their own power, but by Hercules aircraft. Five of them landed in North Luangwa National Park in 2003, five years after the declared national extinction, rather longer since the last rhino was killed for its horn in Zambia.

The North Luangwa Conservation Programme (NLCP) had taken four years of preparation to set up, but now the great adventure was on, a glorious attempt to put the toothpaste back in the tube. 

It was established by Frankfurt Zoological Society, and it receives funding from organisations that include Save the Rhino, which is based in London. 

Ten more rhinos came to North Luangwa in 2006, five more in 2008, and another five two years later. 

That meant that by 2011, there were 25 rhinos in a well-watched and well-guarded area of 220 square kilometres. They were kept in protected circumstances, initially in a boma, or timber-walled enclosure.

Now the population is free-ranging, protected by the vigilance of people on the ground. 

Circumstances are not entirely natural – at least not yet – and the project will supply lucerne and sausage-fruit to animals in sub-optimal condition and to lactating females.

It’s not been straightforward. It never is. The process makes considerable demands on the animals involved. They’re not machines: the flight is difficult and the instant change of environment is traumatic. 

Such things can be hard for domestic animals, as horse-people will tell you. For wild animals, not selectively bred for docility, there will always be problems.

Some rhinos found it harder to make the change than others. Others possibly contracted trypanosomiasis, from the tsetse flies that favour the Valley and so make it a no-go area for cattle farmers – which is the reason the habitat has remained in such good shape for so long. 

Others died in fights. And in the traumatic year of 2011, six of the rhinos died: more than 15% of the population. “It was one of the hottest and driest years on record,” says Claire Lewis, technical adviser for the NLCP. “All wild animals suffer under such extreme conditions. It was hugely disappointing, but we had to be pragmatic about it.”

That is the problem with all small populations: there is no such thing as a small disaster. The project is still a fragile thing: it wouldn’t take much to lose the lot, at the cost of a good deal of money and great deal more hope. 

A mother of a three-month-old calf was found dead and the calf never seen again. Such things are hard to deal with for the people on the ground.

There was easy consolation to be found: six more calves were born. There is now a population of 34 black rhinos in North Luangwa National Park, and it’s time to think about expanding.

At the time of writing, and in the entire history of the project, not a single rhino has been lost to poaching. 

This is a kind of miracle: and it comes from hard work, high motivation and considerable skills.

Credits : News Week