Here is a rare wildlife success story. The world’s black rhino population has plummeted to just over 6,000 as rhinos are pushed to the brink of extinction by habitat loss and poaching. But conservation efforts have resulted in a rhino comeback in Kenya, where numbers are growing in fenced-off sanctuaries known as conservancies that employ local people and keep poachers out.
Tom Hardy provides a slightly distracting narration to this documentary, channelling David Attenborough with a dash of 19th-century aristo-explorer. The film opens with the fact that in the past three years, 1,900 rhinos have been poached across Africa, but not a single one in Kenya. In the Borana Conservancy we meet charismatic head ranger Ramson Kiloku, a man who knows every single rhino on his patch by its footprint and the nicks on its ears.
Kenya’s rhinos, however, are becoming victims of their own success. Increasing numbers in the conservancies are causing competition between males, who will fight to the death for territory. There is a horrible irony of rhinos protected from poachers killing each other, and a plan is hatched to move 21 rhinos 100 miles away to Loisaba Conservancy – a high-risk strategy, we’re told. A similar attempt ended in disaster with the death of all 11 rhinos being moved.
But before the rhinos can be transported, Kenya is hit by a drought, devastating for locals whose survival depends on agriculture and livestock. Gangs of bandits terrorise farms, and poaching is on the rise. Oddly, the film doesn’t explore the threat to endangered species from the climate crisis. I could have lived with a bit more of Hardy on the voiceover if he had been given the remit to explain – and possibly without some choices on the soundtrack, including a mawkish rendition of Knocking on Heaven’s Door.
● Rhino is in UK cinemas from 28 November.