Return of the White Rhino

Conservationists are celebrating in Uganda. In late June, a baby white rhino was born there -- the first since the species was declared extinct three decades ago. 

Once numbering in the thousands, by the 1960s there were only about 300 left, and ultimately they went extinct in the country because of a bloody dictator and poachers going after their horns, which are mostly exported to Asia for use in ornaments or alternative medicines. By 1982, they were completely wiped out from the parks and wild areas of this landlocked, eastern Africa country.

Now, the rhino is on its way back. In 1997, the non-governmental group Rhino Fund of Uganda was founded to work toward restoring the rhino to Uganda. Five years later, the group leased 70 square kilometers to create the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary. Encircled by a solar-powered electric fence and monitored by two dozen armed rangers, the sanctuary is a safe haven for a breeding program that aims to eventually re-introduce the rhinos to all of Uganda’s parks. In 2005, the European Union donated four white rhinos from Kenya to the project. And in August 2006, Disney’s Animal Kingdom donated two more white rhinos. Twelve more rhinos from South Africa are expected to arrive later this year.

Next year, conservationists will begin an environmental education program to teach villagers near Ugandan parks to help preserve the rhino, which is globally endangered (only an estimated 11,000 left in the world) and the second-largest mammal on land after the elephant.

“We will teach them how to conserve the rhinos and tell them how difficult it is to reintroduce them after their depletion. After that, we will be confident enough to reintroduce them into the wild,” Andrew Seguya, executive director of the government-run Uganda Wildlife Education Centre, UWEC, told the German news agency DPA.

The Rhino Fund says its not yet sure whether the baby is a male or female, but its already decided to name the baby rhino Obama or Michelle, after the US president or the first lady, because they say, like Obama, the father of the rhino is from Kenya while the mother is from the United States.