Spotted: first calf of WWF's 11th black rhino population
The first rhino calf of WWF's black rhino project's 11th population has been spotted with its mother just months after the group's relocation from KwaZulu-Natal.
WWF’s Black Rhino Range Expansion Project (BRREP) had successfully moved its 11th population of this critically endangered species to a new location in the north of the country to allow them to breed and bolster their numbers. In what is a mark of the project’s success over the years, some of the rhinos involved in the move were offspring from early project sites.
BRREP has been working since 2003 to increase black rhino numbers by increasing the land available on which they can breed. This is done by moving founder populations of rhino to new areas. The first group of rhinos was moved in 2004.
There are now about 200 black rhino on BRREP sites across South Africa. This represents roughly 10% of the country’s black rhino population.
