Africa trip – Day 8: Ol Pejeta Conservancy

12/9/2024 was the day that I was most looking forward to because we got to meet Baraka the black rhino. I’ve always had a special interest in rhinos and there is exactly one rhino in the entire world that you can get close to and pet (and live to tell the tale).

Baraka is blind in both eyes and is unable to survive in the wild. Hence, he has his own pen at the conservancy (which is almost an acre, so it is hardly a cage). He was extremely aggressive after being penned (black rhinos are the most naturally aggressive) and they played music constantly to help calm him. After a few years, he relaxed a bit and over time has become very gentle. It was an honor getting to meet him!

We also learned more about the work that the conservancy does , especially to prevent poaching within their park and in preserving the northern white rhino (they have the last two northern white rhinos in existence, but they are both female and are unable to carry a calf).

Poaching is a huge problem for rhinos because Chinese medicine posits that their horns can cure various ailments (obviously without any evidence). This caused the northern white rhino population to drop from thousands in the 1970s to just two females in 2018 (when the last male northern white rhino died). Education has been able to drop the demand a little, but not entirely. For this reason, Ol Pejeta employs a small army to keep poachers away and also use planes, drones, and dogs trained to smell weapons.

A very good dog (who WILL find your gun)

But these efforts alone are insufficient to entirely deter determined poachers. Several years ago they added a new tactic to their arsenal and since then they haven’t had a poaching incident in over 6 years! They realized that while the demand for rhino horn is global, the actual poachers were locals who were just trying to survive. Hence, they started investing in the local communities (providing better health care, agriculture assistance, education, etc.) and this has made a huge difference.

While the two remaining northern white rhinos are non-child bearing females, they were able to harvest their eggs and the sperm from the remaining northern white rhino males. They now have frozen embryos that they hope to implant into female southern white rhinos.

After visiting the headquarters, we drove around and saw various animals:

You’d be forgiven if you assumed that white rhinos and black rhinos are different colors, but unfortunately they are are all the same grey color. The name comes from a mistranslation of the word “wide” (the white rhino has a wider jaw than the black rhino). We saw both white rhinos and black rhinos, but I have a hard time identifying the species.

And then we stopped at this tree and got out, and I was truly humbled when I realized that I was on sacred ground!

Afterward we lightened our mood by driving to a monument to the equator (where we stood with one foot in each hemisphere).

We then spent a few hours relaxing after lunch.

By the time that we started the afternoon game drive, the safari group was fixated on finding a lion. It was all that anybody talked about, but alas – today was not our day (Komora says they call it a game drive because sometimes you win and sometimes you lose). But we did see the following: