Care for Wild racing against the clock to save rhino calf

Care for Wild treats the orphaned White Rhino calf. Image: Care for Wild.

Chelsea Pieterse, Lowvelder | September 13, 2021

Care for Wild is working tirelessly to try and save the life of an orphaned white rhino. The calf is thought to have been orphaned through a recent poaching incident.

Petronel Nieuwoudt, founder of Care for Wild, said the calf has a deep wound to its neck and a severely injured shoulder. It is also being treated for shock, pain, dehydration and hypothermia.

Care for Wild transported the calf to its facility on Sunday and has been working and monitoring it around the clock.

SANParks’ Isaac Phaahla said the section ranger in the area, Richard Sowry, and his team originally found the calf in the Manyeleti Game Reserve a month ago.

Sowry said it is believed that the injury to the neck was a wound from a horn, inflicted by another rhino.

“While doing a Rhino notching, tagging and dehorning exercise on Saturday we located a rhino cow and calf. We darted both, but we could see from the air (helicopter) that the calf was not in good condition, although we could not see the injury to the neck,” said Sowry.

“Once down, we could see that it was the same calf that was treated in Manyeleti and the injury to the neck had started healing and was no longer weeping fluid. Its condition was however very poor.”

The cow the calf was with, was heavily pregnant, and according to Sowry, based on the age of the calf (around one year), was not the calf of the pregnant rhino.

It is suspected that the calf was birthed by another cow, but had been orphaned by what is believed to have been a poaching incident.

“It was also likely that some of the injuries of the calf were from the cow. As this was probably an orphan from a poaching incident a while ago, I contacted the KNP vets and requested assistance to relocate the orphaned calf for rehabilitation at either Skukuza or Care for the Wild,” said Sowry.

“I managed to get hold of Peter Buss (KNP Vet). He later advised that the chopper, piloted by David Simelane and accompanied by KNP vet, Lufuno Netshitavhadulu would come to assist.

“Once we woke the adult cow up she moved away from the calf. We treated the calf and waited for the helicopter to arrive. We loaded the calf in a cargo net and it was slung by chopper to Skukuza. If we had not done this, it would have died in the near future.”

Sowry said he later learned that the potential surrogate mother rhinos in the Skukuza boma had not accepted the calf and that they were moving it to Care for Wild.

Nieuwoudt said as of Monday morning, the calf was not in a good condition. This is a developing story and updates will be provided as soon as more information becomes available.

Read the original story here.