Ubizane Wildlife Reserve: The De-horning of our Rhino

Wednesday 9 May 2012

The De-horning of our Rhino

On the morning of the 25^th of April, the helicopter and veterinarian arrived early morning at Ubizane, for the dehorning of our very last remaining rhino, who’s mother and father sadly had been poached exactly one year apart, first Butch the father in March 2011 and the mother in March 2012. Thus leaving us with no choice but to dehorn our last rhino as the only measure left in the attempt to protect the last offspring of this family.

After an hour and a half’s search by helicopter, he was finally spotted and the darting commenced. Our little man in true fashion after having survived two poaching attempts, was not prepared to be dropped that easily. It took a full three darts to finally bring him down! Once down all parties rushed in to get him blindfolded and calmed to start the dehorning procedure.

DNA was first gathered from his tail hair, and blood and a microchip was inserted, for future identification. Trevor Viljoen, the veterinarian, marked out where the horn was to be cut, and using a chainsaw for efficiency, both horns were removed speedily, but also in itself a nerve-wracking process, to ensure that the rhino remains still and everyone’s hands remain safe throughout the process.

As soon as the horns were removed, the rhino was injected to counter-act the immobilizing drug’s effect. Everyone moved away to give him some space to wake up and within a few minutes he was up on his feet, even though being a little dazed and confused.

Back at the lodge the horns were weighed, measured, photographed, and DNA taken, and micro-chipped for future reference. The horns will from here be removed to an undisclosed location.

The vet and conservationist shared a very interesting story with us of what happens with the DNA. At the veterinary faculty at Onderstepoort a DNA database is being built up specifically for Rhinos. This way family trees can be built up for each and every rhino. Nowadays, with the huge threat on rhinos, each rhino whether alive or dead, whenever they are “operated” on, DNA samples are gathered and supplied to Onderstepoort to be added to the database. Thus whenever rhino horn is discovered by officials during a “crackdown” on criminals, the recovered horn’s DNA can then be compared and matched to the database for identification, and thus we it can be matched to a specific rhino poaching incident.