UGANDA HAS A NEW BABY BULL RHINO, AFTER ITS FIRST BABY BULL NAMED BARACK OBAMA WAS BORN SIX MONTHS AGO.
Conservation News By Leo Odera Omolo
UGANDA has seen its second rhino born at the Nakasongola Wildlife Sanctuary this year. The country had its hitherto large herds of rhino population wiped out and put into extinction by poachers about thirty years ago.
After giving birth to a bull calf named Barack Obama six months ago, another male calf was produced at Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary last weekend.
The arrival of a healthy baby male calf now brings the total number of rhinos in the country to eight. The number is expected to increase to nine, because another pregnant mother is expected to deliver next month.
The new calf is also a bull and has been named Augustu. This is second rhino calf to be born this year. It bring the number of rhinos born in Uganda to two in 28 years.
Augustu’s mother, Bella, was brought to the country from Solio Ranch in Kenya, but had a still birth in March. .
Currently, the baby and mother are living in seclusion. They are being closely monitored by Ziwa Sanctuary rangers and are reported in good health conditions.
“All the rhinos are wild and roam freely on the 70 square kilometer Sanctuary…. The birth of both calves was totally natural. Our third cow Kori, who also came from Solio Ranch in Kenya, is heavily pregnant, and we are expecting her to calve either in December or early in January next years”, said the chief executive, Mr Genade.
The first baby rhino, Barrack Obama, who was born on June 24,2009, is said to be doing well, according to Mr Genade. “Obama has so far doubled in size and is a very busy boy! He runs like the wind and the rangers struggle to keep up with his energy”.
The two calves are Uganda’s first rhinos to be born in Uganda since the extinction of the black and white rhinos in that country in the early 1980s.
Rhino Fund Uganda, a non governmental Organization [NGO}, runs the Ziwa Sanctuary, which was formed in the 1990s to mobilize funds and technical expertise to bring back the rhinos. Their first initiative was to import rhinos from privately owned Solio Ranch in Kenya.
The two imported rhinos, Sherino and Kabila, are kept at the Uganda wildlife Education Centre. The NGO and Uganda Wildlife Authority are preparing to import six more rhinos from South Africa early next year.
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