Ol Pejeta, Laikipia, Kenya – Northern White Rhinoceroses – September 2014

Besides the extraordinary Wild Dogs den, Ol Pejeta is also a successful sanctuary for endangered Rhinoceroses, both Black and Whites. More than 100 Black Rhinos live in the Conservancy, which is quite extraordinary, plus many reintroduced White Rhinos. Ol Pejeta also hosts three of the six remaining Northern White Rhinoceroses in the world. This subspecies of the White Rhinoceros, Certathoterium simum cottoni, inhabited the grasslands of Northern Congo and South Sudan, but it has now been exterminated in the wild. Only a few specimens remained in zoos in Prague and in San Diego. In order to increase the chances of these rare animals to successfully breed, four of them were transferred to the wild lands of East Africa right here in Ol Pejeta in 2009. Unfortunately, one of the four, a male named Suni, recently died of natural causes. The Northern White Rhino has a flat back and hair on the ears, as opposed to the Southern White Rhino, which has a small hump in the center of the back and no hair on the ears.

I visited the area where the Northern White Rhinos are kept together with Southern White Rhinos. Here a Northern White Rhino female walks towards me. Her horns have been sawed off to discourage poaching.

Two Southern White Rhinos interact in the open plains of Ol Pejeta, Kenya