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SECRET LIFE OF DESERT RHINO REVEALED
Saba and the Rhinos' Secret premieres
on Thursday 21st June at 9.00pm on Animal Planet
Famously bad tempered, myopic and solitary,
the black rhino has a daunting reputation. Its common reflex on
encountering danger is to charge.
Just 50 years ago there was a rhino behind
every bush in Africa. But today, poached to the brink of extinction
for its horn there are now less than 3,000 left on the continent.
Little understood, near-impossible to study, feared and vilified,
the private life of rhinos has remained an enigma until now.
10 years ago, whilst working for the Save
the Rhino Trust in the hinterland of Namibia, renowned wildlife
expert, Saba Douglas-Hamilton stumbled onto a secret; a surprising
number of black rhino had adapted to an arid lifestyle in the
desert and their numbers were thriving on the inhospitable and
deadly Skeleton coast.
Well protected since the late 80's, their
numbers are on the rise, but little is known about their social
lives. Leaving only the faintest smudge of footprints in the dust,
rhino travel vast distances in search of food and water. Rhino
can only be tracked on foot during the day, and even the most
intrepid are careful not to get too close.
Saba is on to a hot tip through her friends
at Save the Rhino Trust (SRT), where super-trackers like ex-poacher
Filimon Uri-Khob follow rhino daily to gather data on their desert
ecology. Using camels to patrol the heart of the desert, rangers
from SRT provide a critical deterrent to poachers.
Capturing their intricate social dance,
Saba reveals for the first time the secret life of desert rhino:
surprisingly vivacious and social creatures at night and, when
given the chance, gentle and unafraid. Saba and the Rhinos' Secret
will premiere as part of a month long series called Wild Hearts,
which will showcase some of Animal Planet's most emotive programming.
From Growing up Orang-Utan which follows
the first year in the life an orphaned Orang-Utan being cared
for by human parents, to the premiere of Jessica the Hippo which
tells the tale of Jessica, a baby hippo washed up on a private
lawn during the Mozambique floods of 2000 and now cared for by
a retired game warden Toni and his wife Shirely. Jessica mixes
freely with the wild hippos along the river but always returns
'home' at night sleeping on Toni's porch and sometimes even in
his home. Jessica the Hippo tells a story of an extraordinary
friendship between a man and his hippo.
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How your donations can help
£10 can buy a set of hats
for a team of trackers
£20 can buy Rhino ID booklets for one team for
six month
£50 can buy 3 sets of boots for trackers for
six month
£100 can buy patrol rations for a team of trackers
for one month
Click here to read
more in our February appeal
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