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08 June 2020

Rhinos & Rangers – A Rhinos Without Borders Update 2020

By Alex Walters, Great Plains Conservation

On seeing rhinos for the first time in their lives, last year, the Chiefs of six remote villages from the Okavango Community Trust couldn’t believe how calm the rhinos were, having only heard tales of the animals’ ferocity and dangerous nature.

But there lay three rhinos, in the shade of a tree. Three hefty, healthy and peaceful rhinos that now called Botswana home, after being relocated through the Rhinos Without Borders project from poaching hotspots in South Africa. The Chiefs were thrilled and amazed at the sight, after Rhinos Without Borders Head Ranger, Poster took them out to track the rhinos using the state-of-the-art technology used to keep these rhinos safe and monitored at all times.

In this remote northern part of Botswana, many people living in the local villages, right next to wildlife concessions, have never seen a rhino before. Poaching wiped out rhino populations in Botswana in the 1980s. In the early 1990s, there were only 19 white rhinos left and black rhinos were locally extinct. For many in Botswana back then, a rhino was simply a word, a forbidden fruit, a threat. Not an animal with a heart and nerves and grief. This is starting to change.

Rhinos Without Borders has demonstrated the power of collaborative conservation. READ MORE