UHURU GETS TO MEET HER FAMILY AND PALS
(Posted 18th November 2013)
After 5 months of self styled isolation has one of Ziwa’s adult females, Nandi, formally ‘introduced’ her latest calf, a little girl named Uhuru, to the rest of the Ziwa rhinos. 11 of the overall now 13 Southern White rhinos came together and met near the sanctuary head offices over the weekend, and visiting conservationist Dr. Felix Patton was at hand to take a picture when little Uhuru met her siblings, the adolescents and the grown up rhinos for the first time.
Dr. Patton’s picture captures the essence of this meeting as Uhuru is seen with one of the male adolescents, nose on nose in an intimate greetings, as if saying ‘hello mate, I am little Uhuru and who might you be’.
The rhino reintroduction and breeding programme has taken deep root over the past years at Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary where the initially 6 adults, 3 male and 3 female, have in intervals of just 2 years, unprecedented in breeding programmes it is understood, produced offspring and with the two other female adults also pregnant, one due to deliver before the end of the year and the other one in early 2014, all going well will Ziwa by that time then have 15 rhinos on the 17.000 acres large sanctuary.
Other game regularly seen are among others leopards, bush bucks, water bucks and for birders most notably the rare shoebill stork, of which several have made a home in the wetlands and swamps of Ziwa, posing for visitors with a regularity otherwise hardly seen anywhere else in Uganda. Entrance to the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary are free but against a donation to the Rhino Fund’s operations can rhinos be tracked in the company of rangers and wardens on foot, something most tourists take advantage of. Ziwa is conveniently located some 180 kilometres from Kampala en route to the Murchisons Falls National Park and has in past years become a must visit location for tourists enjoying the sights and scenery of the Pearl of Africa.
Visit www.rhinofund.org for more information about the Rhino Fund Uganda’s breeding programme and how you can support rhino conservation in Uganda.
(Picture by Dr. Felix Patton)
