Thirty endangered white rhinos have arrived in Rwanda following a long voyage aboard a Boeing 747 from South Africa, with conservationists hailing it as the largest single transfer of the species ever attempted.
The stately animals traveled 3,400 kilometres (2,100 miles) from South Africa’s Phinda Private Game Reserve as part of a campaign to replace the species’ population, which has been ravaged by poaching since the 1970s.
White rhinos were once common in Sub-Saharan Africa, but they were decimated by European settlers’ hunting and then a poaching epidemic.
Following months of preparation, the rhinos began their 40-hour trek to their new home in Akagera National Park in eastern Rwanda, according to African Parks, a foundation led by Prince Harry of the United Kingdom that is involved in the exercise.
“We had to tranquilize them to reduce their stress, which is itself risky, and monitor them,” said African Parks’ CEO Peter Fearnhead.
After arriving in the park, the animals were transported aboard a chartered Boeing 747 and placed in two grassland enclosures, each the size of a football stadium.
Authorities say they will be permitted to tour the vast park later.
“This will provide an opportunity for them to grow in a safe environment from South Africa where three are killed per day by poachers,” said the park’s regional manager Jes Gruner.
Transferring wildlife comes with its own set of dangers. In 2018, four of the six black rhinos transported to Chad died within a few months of their arrival.
According to the World Wildlife Fund, the southern white rhino, one of two subspecies of white rhino, is now considered endangered, with only about 20,000 animals left (WWF).
The International Union for Conservation of Nature has classified it as near-threatened (IUCN).
Only two female northern white rhinos are alive, indicating that the species is nearly extinct.
Scientists are seeking to save the species from extinction by extracting eggs from Fatu, the younger of the two creatures, and using sperm from two deceased males to generate embryos in an unprecedented breeding effort.
