white rhino

Four White Rhinos To Travel To Kenya

Four white rhinos, representatives of very rare and endangered subspecies of rhinoceros, are to be moved from the Czech zoo situated in Dvur Kralove nad Labem which is some 100 km to the Northeast of Prague to nature reservation Ol Pejeta in Kenya. The animals will be released for returning to their wildlife environment.

Jana Mysliveckova, the zoo’s spokeswoman, reported that two female rhinos named Najin and Fatu and two male ones Sudan and Suni by name will be moved to the capital city of Kenya Nairobi on Saturday. This is to be done in order to prevent the species from extinction. At the moment the zoo is awaiting for the CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) permission.

The wild population of white rhinos presented by four animals living in Garamba National Park in Congo has been reported missed since 2006 and may as well be extinct at the moment. Only eight white rhinos currently reside in zoos – six ones in the above mentioned Czech zoo and two animals in San Diego, USA.

The management of Kenyan national park hopes that moving four animals to the wild may give a chance to breed this very endangered species and save it from complete extinction. At the moment the situation around white rhinos survival seems to be critical and some kind of miracle is needed to save these animals.

Naturally, there are some people who are against moving the Czech born rhinos to Africa. Thus, Roman Komeda of Safari Archa 2007 NGO believes that long distance transportation poises a real threat for the animals and the whole campaign has no sense because there are no other white rhinos to breed with left in Kenya.

About thirty acivists of Safari Archa 2007 gathered in Hradec Kralove on Wednesday, December 16, to express their protest against rhinos’ transfer.
 

Date: 17/12/2009