Wednesday, September 11, 2024

POTD: The Big Five - Rhinoceros

"In Africa’s heart,
Rhinos push with gentle might,
Power without rage."

— h/t ChatGPT

From 2023 10 25 Wildlife of Southern Africa

Today's photo-of-the-day is from Hluhluwe—iMfolozi Park in South Africa. It's the oldest nature reserve in Africa. "Thanks to conservation efforts, the park now has one of the largest populations of white rhinoceros in the world, although this population remains severely threatened by the poaching of hundreds of rhinos every year in the park."

This is a photo of two White Rhinos locking horns. They pushed and shoved each other for a bit, but never really broke out into serious fighting. Maybe they were just posing for the tourists. ;-) Many of the rhinos we saw lacked their distinctive horns. Rhinos are dehorned to make them less attractive to poachers, but there are still some in all of their fighting glory, like these two.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

https://mg.co.za/the-green-guardian/2024-04-16-ezemvelo-kzn-wildlife-resorts-to-dehorning-rhinos-to-limit-poaching/

Anonymous said...

https://youtu.be/F2wBg-LsBtA?feature=shared

Anonymous said...

https://www.wwf.org.za/?47943/Ezemvelo-KZN-Wildlife-extends-dehorning

Mark Steger said...

The blog post has been updated with correct information about the dehorning process.