The park has dedicated rhino monitoring teams to protect the animals from poaching. In September 2017, the birth of a calf raised the population to 19. The park had around 50 rhinos in the 1970s but the numbers dwindled to zero by 2007. In May 2017, 18 eastern black rhinos were translocated from South Africa to the Akagera National Park in Rwanda. Similarly it was reintroduced to Zambia (North Luangwa National Park) in 2008, where it had become extinct in 1998, and to Botswana (extinct in 1992, reintroduced in 2003). The black rhino has been successfully reintroduced to Malawi since 1993, where it became extinct in 1990. Some specimens have been relocated from their habitat to better protected locations, sometimes across national frontiers. The remaining populations are highly scattered. Today it is totally restricted to protected nature reserves and has vanished from many countries in which it once thrived, especially in the west and north of its former range. The natural range of the black rhino included most of southern and eastern Africa, but it did not occur in the Congo Basin, the tropical rainforest areas along the Bight of Benin, the Ethiopian Highlands, and the Horn of Africa. An excellent sense of smell alerts rhinos to the presence of predators. Their ears have a relatively wide rotational range to detect sounds. Such behaviour was originally thought to be an example of mutualism, but recent evidence suggests that oxpeckers may be parasites instead, feeding on rhino blood.
Black rhino habitat skin#
Their skin harbors external parasites, such as mites and ticks, which may be eaten by oxpeckers and egrets. Their thick-layered skin helps to protect black rhinos from thorns and sharp grasses. A black rhinoceros skull with restored horn
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