“This moment marks the beginning of a new rhino story for Kidepo Valley National Park,” UWA’s executive director James Musinguzi is quoted by Reuters as saying.<\/p>\n
“Translocation of these rhinos is the first step in restoring a species that once formed part of the park’s natural heritage,” he added.<\/p>\n
Musinguzi said the initiative is guided by a study that looked at habitat suitability, ecological needs and security conditions and found that Kidepo was one of the best sites for successfully reintroducing the species.<\/p>\n
The UWA said a secure rhino sanctuary outfitted with perimeter fencing, access roads, firebreaks, ranger facilities, water systems and monitoring technology was in place to ensure the animals are effectively protected and managed.<\/p>\n
The two rhinos were moved to Kidepo, a vast expanse of savannah in the remote north-east of the country, from a privately owned ranch in Nakasongola, about 100 km (62 miles) north of the capital, Kampala.<\/p>\n
The ranch has been breeding rhinos since 2005, when it imported four southern white rhinos from a Kenyan game reserve.<\/p>\n
Poaching is still a challenge in Uganda, where authorities have arrested and prosecuted individuals found with ivory, pangolins and other endangered species, conservationists report.<\/p>\n
The illicit rhino horn market remains lucrative fuelled by their use in traditional medicine and their value as status symbols in several Asian countries.<\/p>\n
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classifies the southern white rhino as “near threatened” saying their population is decreasing. A survey from 2020 said there were just over 10,000 of the huge mammals in existence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“This moment marks the beginning of a new rhino story for Kidepo Valley National Park,” UWA’s executive director…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-484811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}