Help Raise Orphaned Baby Rhinos

It has been a busy time at the Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre (HESC). Surrogate mom Esmé, along with faithful Pedi sheep companions Mielie and Liquorice, have been diligently making sure that the calves go about their business in an orderly fashion.

Each morning, they are let out of the boma to enjoy their time wandering around the Centre or lie down under the shade of the trees to take a nap – a favourite pastime. They also love to hang around the carport area where the safari vehicles are parked that take the visitors on their daily tours.

All the calves are growing up fast, with Thaba and Mango now being considered the oldest in the group. Bula is fully weaned and received his final milk feed on the 30^th of September last year. Peter is now down to a single milk feed per day of 6 litres (around 1.58 gallons). He will be weaned in February.

Angie is still enjoying all her milk feeds, so no signs of any weaning just yet.

While the milk feeds are getting less, the lucerne and teff requirements are increasing. Rhinos are rather large and require an equally large amount of food to keep them going.

We are grateful to you, our faithful donors. Thanks to your generosity, we can continue to keep our rhinos’ tummies full.

We look forward to bringing you more developments as they happen – but in the meantime, please continue to follow us on our social media platforms, where we post regular updates.

Since our last report, there has been a new development, and as such, we have changed some particulars in our project to accommodate Angie, our latest rescue orphan rhino calf.

Angie’s story

Little Angie was discovered on a reserve aimlessly walking around next to the body of her mom, who had been poached. She was naturally distressed, even attempting to suckle from her dead mom. After some gentle coaxing from the reserve staff, she was loaded up and taken through to the Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre (HESC) for rehabilitation and care. It is believed that she was around 5 or 6 months of age when this took place.

Angie was given round-the-clock care, and milk feeds every 2 hours. She was also placed in quarantine to ensure that she was kept healthy and that she had no viruses or bacteria. Once the HESC team were satisfied with her progress, she was allowed to leave the quarantine area for daily walks before being moved to the boma adjoining Esmé and the other calves, including Thaba, Peter and Bula.

Recently, Angie was integrated with the rest of the crash, and we can report that she is doing well. She thoroughly enjoys her mud baths, and it also appears that Bula has taken a special interest in Angie, constantly following her around in an attempt to get her to play with him.

Please continue to follow us on our social media platforms, where we will bring you more updates as they happen.