Your Impact for Rhinos
Our supporters have created a lasting impact over the last 12 months. With a focus on our three conservation pillars – Protect – Preserve – Provide – we are striving to create a more secure future for rhinos, the other animals they share their habitats with and the people who live alongside them, and our supporters in 2024 have helped us achieve some incredible milestones for rhinos.
How Our Supporters Helped – Protect
2024 saw the busiest ever year for our rhino orphanage facility, with the team rescuing thirteen orphans, while still caring for another twelve, including preparing five of our older orphans for release back into the wild in early 2025. Tragically three of the rescued orphans could not be saved, and these losses were incredibly difficult for our team. But despite the losses and the influx of new orphans, our supporters have enabled us to expand the Zululand Rhino Orphanage and up-grade facilities, meaning our team will be better equipped than ever to provide the life-saving care these orphans so desperately need.
In the Eastern Cape of South Africa our supporters enabled us to keep Eyes in the Sky and fund more hours of aerial surveillance, by both plane and drone, to watch over a number of key rhino populations across this globally important landscape. Alongside this aerial anti-poaching support we fitted yet more state-of-the-art rhino monitoring devices, creating an early warning system against poachers and enabling our rhino monitors to watch over their charges more safely and efficiently.
Meanwhile in the Greater Kruger area our supporters have kept the Black Mambas, the world’s first all female anti-poaching unit on patrol, acting as boots on the ground and role models in their communities.
And at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya thanks to our supporters we were able to provide daily care for the last two northern white rhinos in the world, including weekly veterinary check-ups and security, ensuring their health and wellbeing as exciting steps forward are made to save the species from extinction.
How Our Supporters Helped – Preserve
Despite figures from 2023 showing a decline in black rhino numbers across Africa, our supporters have still enabled us to make encouraging progress with our Rhino Strongholds initiative to drive the growth of key populations across the continent.
Thanks to our supporters we were able to continue to protect the largest population of eastern black rhino in the world at Ol Pejeta Conservancy, which in turn saw the relocation of 21 black rhinos from Ol Pejeta and other conservancies across Kenya, to Loisaba Conservancy to establish a new founder population. A population which we are happy to report has already enjoyed the arrival of a new baby rhino.
This positive news for black rhino was continued in South Africa’s Eastern Cape with our project-partners the Kariega Foundation as we marked the one year anniversary of the completion of an important habitat expansion. This expansion has not only allowed for the introduction of a new black rhino population, a vital first step in our goal to see black rhino roaming freely across the Eastern Cape, but is a key piece of a greater vision of connected landscapes for the region.
How Our Supporters Helped – Provide
With our project-partners the Bush Babies our supporters saw environmental education lessons provided for learners from 10 primary schools in key communities around the Greater Kruger area.
Combined with the completion of a new school in the Eastern Cape, and a site being allocated for a further school in the area, these are great steps forward in our efforts to provide for local communities and highlight that effective conservation only works when it supports people as well as wildlife.
2024 saw both highs and lows but as you’ve seen above we have still managed to achieve some great successes for rhino.
None of this is possible without our supporters, so thank you for making a tangible difference to our rhino conservation work across Africa.
As we move into 2025 we have some ambitious plans and we look forward to sharing these with you in the new year and seeing how your continued support will help us to protect more rhinos than ever before, by expanding critical wildlife habitat and supporting local communities.
Together we can make even more progress and have even more of an impact in 2025.
As ever thank you for your ongoing support.
