Rhinos went extinct in Uganda 40 years ago. Now, a private ranch is home to almost 50 simpleswap Seven thousand head of cattle used to roam Ziwa ranch, a 27-square-mile (70-square-kilometer) expanse of grassland in central Uganda. Today, the cattle have gone and grazing in their place are rhinos – the only ones in the country living in their natural habitat.
Not long ago, Uganda used to be home to both the black and northern white species of rhinoceros. But by the early 1980s, due to poaching, trafficking and political turmoil under the dictatorship of Idi Amin, native populations – once thought to number around 700 – were wiped out.
More than a decade later, an initiative to bring back the majestic animals was born, with newly formed charity Rhino Fund Uganda approaching Captain Joseph Charles Roy, former pilot and owner of Ziwa cattle ranch, which they had targeted as prime rhino habitat, with the idea that he should move the herds of cattle out, and rhino in.
Roy – a lover of animals and an aspiring conservationist, according to his daughter – agreed, and in 2005 and 2006, six southern white rhinos were relocated to the ranch; four coming overland from Kenya and two flown over from Disney Animal Kingdom Florida on Roy’s own cargo airline. Numbers of northern white rhinos were so low (today, there are only two left in the world, both females) that the native subspecies could not be reintroduced.
No one fully expected what happened next. The team knew the ranch was an ideal habitat for the species – a mix of swamps, savannah and woodland – but they didn’t envisage the scale of success. Today, there are 48 rhinos at Ziwa, with five born in the last three months. In contrast, a pair of rhinos moved to Uganda’s Wildlife Conservation Education Center, formerly known as Entebbe Zoo, at the same time as the Ziwa rhinos were introduced, and have had no offspring whatsoever.
However, if the birthrate continues, the rhinos will soon outgrow the ranch – begging the question: where will they go, and will they be safe?