International Rhino Foundation Newsletter 

We hope your year is off to a good start – 2010 has already been busy for IRF, and we’d like to fill you in on some rhino news from around the world.

But first, we’d like to thank all of you who contributed to IRF in 2009. We know that 2009 was a difficult year for many individuals and organizations, but because of your generosity, IRF was able to continue protecting the world’s most threatened rhinos, and the ecosystems on which they depend.

Your support enabled the Lowveld Rhino Trust to translocate 49 black rhinos out of high-risk areas in Zimbabwe, significantly reducing poaching losses. With your help, our Indonesian Rhino Protection Units arrested more than 100 people for illegal poaching, logging and encroachment in Way Kambas, Bukit Barisan Selatan and Ujung Kulon National Parks (home to the Critically Endangered Sumatran and Javan rhino, respectively.)  In India, your donation helped build and maintain an 8-kilometer fence along the southern boundary of Manas National Park – preventing newly translocated greater one-horned rhinos from leaving the park and wandering into areas where they could be killed.

Thank you to all of our 2009 donors!

Valentine’s Day Gift Ideas

Flowers wilt, and that box of chocolates just could go straight to your hips!

So do something different for your nearest and dearest this Valentine’s Day – “adopt” a Sumatran rhino (or perhaps a pair!) for your loved ones, and give a gift that will last for years to come.

Indonesia
In 2007, Cincinati-Zoo-born Andalas made the historic journey to the other side of the world, a trip that spanned more than 10,000 miles and 63 hours by plane, truck and ferry. In early December, 2009, Andalas mated for the first time with Ratu, a subadult Sumatran rhino female who wandered into villages near Way Kambas National Park in late 2006. The pair have not yet conceived, but the stage is now set for a pregnancy at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary. Plans are being drawn up for a maternity pen at the Sanctuary. We’ll keep you posted on Andalas and Ratu’s progress – and please keep your fingers crossed for these rhino sweethearts!

Zimbabwe
Last month, Tichaona Mutyairi, a Zimbabwe rhino poacher with the infamous Mazhongwe gang, was sentenced to 17 years in jail after being captured during an exchange of gunfire with the police in October 2009. Although a regional court in the town of Masvingo took a strict stance, punishing the poacher to the full extent of Zimbabwe’s wildlife and firearm laws, this sentence remains a rare occurrence among captured poachers. In previous court cases, many poachers have been released from jail escaping punishment instead of facing strong, consistent sentences that would deter them from hunting down Zimbabwe's remaining rhinos. We hope the Mutyairi case will a turning point in the conservation battle. Just last week, three would-be poachers were arrested before they had the chance to shoot a rhino, and each was sentenced to 5 years in jail. This sentence will undoubtedly be appealed, but it is a positive first step for a judicial system that has often looked the other way where poaching in concerned.

Along a similar note, a poacher who had poisioned a waterhole, killing a number of rhinos as well as other wildlife, was sentenced to 9 years in prison, and the person who supplied the poison received a 4 year sentence --  another first for the Zimbabwean courts!

Kenya
A fecal DNA study carried out by Antony Wandera has revealed that the Chyulu Hills' black rhino population numbers a minimum 14 animals. Of these, 12 are very closely related - the population has been pretty isolated since the poaching epidemic of the 1970s and 80s - but two are different. It turns out that two animals escaped from the Ngulia Rhino Sanctuary in Tsavo West National Park, to the south of the Chyulus, and somehow found their way to the north end of the hills. The genetic diversity is welcome and much-needed. The Maasailand Preservation Trust (a local NGO and IRF partner) is working with Kenya Wildlife Services to protect and expand the Chyulu Hills rhino population. (One possible option is to translocate more rhinos into the Chyulus to increase the genetic mix and ensure a more viable breeding population.)

South Africa
South African National Park officials announced that during the first two weeks of January, poachers killed 14 rhinos – seven in Kruger National Park (home to one of the world’s largest populations of black and white rhinos). The government has begun military patrols in Kruger, specifically targeting the park’s borders with Zimbabwe and Mozambique. IRF has recently funded a series of workshops in South Africa to help address poaching on private lands.