West Palm Beach, Florida – Trapping a wild rhino in a small chute to give it eye drops may seem like a crazy plan. But if it’s crazy and it works, it’s not crazy.
Animal behaviorists in partnership with Palm Beach Zoo & Conservation Society In Florida, she traveled to Africa in August to help an endangered white rhino with a life-threatening parasitic eye infection.
Daniel Terblanche, Director of Security at Imvelo Safari LodgeHe said there was no one in Zimbabwe to present this plan.
“Believe me, we didn’t think about it, it was a completely ridiculous idea to us,” Terblanche said. “But without doing everything we could to rectify this situation, we would have been in trouble, I think.”
Outside Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe, Community initiative for rhino conservationsupported by Imvelo Safari Lodges, is engaging local communities to reintroduce southern white rhinos to community lands for the first time in the country’s history.
Margo McKnight, CEO and president of the Palm Beach Zoo, was visiting the area last year when Mark Butcher, managing director of Imvelo Safari Lodges, told her that her health concerns with a male rhino named Thuza could jeopardize the future of the program.
“The rhino’s eyes were bleeding. He was rubbing his eyes,” Butcher said. “And I was looking at the possibility that this man might lose his sight. This is in a pilot project that has a wonderful vision for the future of conservation across Africa.”
Thad and Angie Lasinac, founders MicrobehaviourHe traveled to Zimbabwe to work with anti-poaching scouts. They developed a plan based on lessons learned at the Palm Beach Zoo, where animals are taught to voluntarily participate in their care.
“With such a small number of animals in this location in Africa, it was imperative that we save them all,” Angie Lasinac said. “So when they called and said Thosa was going to lose his eye, and a blind rhino was a dead rhino. So no matter what it took, we were going to go out there and try.”
The idea was to coax Thuza into a confined space with his favorite foods and then desensitize him to humans touching water on his face.
“Within about a week, we were strategically placing eye drops in his eyes while he was holding them,” Lasinac said. “By the end of the two weeks, we had transferred that skill set not only to Daniel, who was responsible for leading their guards, but also to the rangers.”
The conservation status of the southern white rhino is listed as near-threatened, with about 16,000 animals living in the wild. Poaching and habitat loss remain a major source of danger. So, while Thoza and other rhinos still face challenges in the wild, at least the animal’s eyes have been protected.
“They are constantly putting medications into his eyes every day,” Lasinac said. “The rhino is now thriving and feels really confident that this has solved its problem.”