Last Northern White Rhinos arrive in Kenya

A special Christmas gift was bestowed on Kenya and the conservation fraternity in eastern Africa, when the last four Northern White Rhinos thought to be able to breed, arrived in Nairobi earlier in the week, before being taken by road to their new home – a sanctuary in the central Kenyan highlands. The animals were donated by zoos in the Czech Republic, which also supported the relocation of eastern Black Rhinos to Tanzania earlier in the year.

It is truly the ultimate and last-ditch attempt to have them reproduce and add more numbers to ensure the survival of the species, as the last population in the wild is thought to have been wiped out by poaching. This sad development was arguably assisted by an incompetent and ignorant minister in the Kinshasa regime some years ago, who stopped the relocation of the remaining animals in Congo’s Garamba National Park, which was just about to commence for reasons he was never able or willing to explain, while claiming at the time that the rare species was protected well enough where they were.

This column has in the past repeatedly discussed this sad case of “rhinocide” and never been shy to call the proverbial spade a spade about the sins and crimes of the Kinshasa regime perpetrated against the wildlife in that country, leave alone the way that regime treats its own citizens.