by Anna Tinker

I’m looking at the rhino and she’s looking back at me.  Well, she’s not really looking back at me – to do that she’d have to see me – and she can’t.  Just like me, the rhino is exceedingly near-sighted.  But unlike me, she hasn’t been to Specsavers.  She wouldn’t fit through the front door.  And she probably wouldn’t want to anyway.

Her ear twitches awkwardly, telling me that she can hear me, and that despite her size, she’s nervous about the vehicle.  She’s pretending to eat some grass but she isn’t really.  It’s like eating M&Ms when you’re nervous and they miss your mouth and fall down your shirt.

The rhinos in Kruger make me smile.  Every time I’m in their presence, I still have to blink a few times.  How privileged we are that something looking so fantastically clumsy and prehistoric can live alongside us.

White Rhinos, Kruger Park, South Africa

Once, I was watching a rhino when suddenly a leopard casually walked in front of it, just inches from the rhino’s face. Neither bothered to look up and not the slightest glance was exchanged. How many of us could pull off an act of such utterly cool indifference? I certainly couldn’t.

Each rhino here is wild and beautiful.  Each in its own way, with its own character. The ones who pretend to eat. The ones who bolt a short distance and then turn back towards you to check if you’re still there. And the ones who just sleep out in the open, while Africa happens all around them. I’ve fallen hopelessly in love with them all. And every now and then, something happens which secures their super-fuzzy place in my heart.

For the past few months, I’d noticed the road signs in Kruger were often lying flattened on the ground. Although never ruling out frustrated tourists, I assumed this to be the work of elephants. After all, elephants push everything else over.

But a few weeks ago, I watched a big, rough-looking bull laden with mildly confused Oxpeckers, casually wander up to a speed limit sign. He proceeded to bash it over with his horn before stomping on it and peeing on it.  A most undignified death for a road-sign.  This rhino didn’t care.  He simply strolled off down the road looking for the next ill-fated sign in his territory.

Mystery solved.  I can stop blaming the elephants.

It’s fair to say that rhinos absolutely rock my socks.

So can you believe that there are people who want to hurt my rhinos?

Did you think poaching was a thing of the past?  The guests I take out on safari often do, and it’s left to me to shock them with some bad news.

Just in the last 3 years, rhino horn has become one of the most valuable commodities on earth.  And what for?  It isn’t bone, and it certainly isn’t ivory.  It’s not much more than keratin, like our own hair and fingernails.  Ridiculous rumours of its ability to cure just about anything have pushed demand to the most extreme levels imaginable.  The only thing a rhino horn can do effectively is sit atop a rhino’s head where it can be used to smack other rhinos and knock over the occasional road sign.

IUCN Status

In Africa:

The Black Rhino (Diceros bicornis) is on the IUCN Red List for Threatened Species  as “critically endangered”. The latest population estimate is 4,180 (December 2007)

The White Rhino (Ceratotherium simum) is on the IUCN Red List for Threatened Species  as “near threatened”. The latest population estimate is 17,480 (December 2007)