This same rhino cow's mother was shot dead by poachers in 2010. The four-year-old bull is the only surviving member of the entire family. A case has been opened at Letsitele police station, after the shooting.
"We noticed that the animals had not been dead for more than an hour so we took off after [the poachers]. With help from two helicopters and a group of local farmers, [the poachers] still managed to slip away," Ian Otto, the manager of Thiergarten farm near Tzaneen in Limpopo, told News24. "When we got back to the crime scene, we found that they first shot the 2-year-old calf and when she went down, the mother stood over her, [the poachers shot] the mother as well," Otto said.
Otto said that the rhino bull, which has not been wounded, had been so traumatised by the loss of his mother and sister that his behaviour is completely abnormal. "We've got a big ranch and he just walks from boundary to boundary. You hear him squealing and grunting. He approaches the other rhino and puts his face into them, turns around and walks away and just constantly calls [to them]." Otto said that, based on the information he had received about the last shootings, the poachers were professional hunters. He was pleased with the reward system offered by Limpopo police for information on poachers, he said, because this might encourage people to help stop poaching as opposed to helping poachers. According to News24, 448 rhino were poached in 2011. Fifty-four rhino have already been poached in 2012 in South Africa - just 45 days into the year.
Read the full article on www.news24.com.
