Joint bid to return critically endangered eastern black rhinos
242 views · Published 25 November 2018 · 2:45 · Indexed 12 October 2026
Channel: AP Archive · 2018 · News & Politics
(20 Nov 2018) LEADIN: Zoo parks from three European countries are joining forces to send critically endangered eastern black rhinos back to their natural habitat in Rwanda. The entire population of Rwandan rhinos was wiped out during the genocide of the 1990s. STORYLINE: Victims of the Rwandan genocide of 1994. Up to a million people are thought to have been killed. The black rhino population was hit too. Not a single animal of the species survived. Now European zoos from the Czech Republic, UK and Denmark are cooperating in a project to reintroduce the black rhino to Rwanda. Director of the Dvur Kralove safari park, Premysl Rabas says he's confident the animals will be safe. "Rwanda is a country that suffered a lot in the past but it's a safe place now. If you say I am going to Rwanda, people think it's dangerous because they have in mind the horrible things that happened there in the 1990's. That (the genocide) has something to do with the animals or had an impact on the animals in Rwanda." Three female and two male rhinos from the Dvur Kralove zoo in the Czech Republic, Flamingo Land in Britain and Ree Park Safari in Denmark will first meet in the Czech zoo to get used to each other and get ready for their transport to the Akagera park in eastern Rwanda in May or June. "It's true that security is already at a very high level. There are guard posts all across the park, with armed guards, who are working 24 hours a day. The entire park is divided into segments that the guards and the guards are watching them all the time," says Rabas. Only 900 of the black rhino subspecies remain in the world, 90 of them in European zoos. The rest of them are in Africa in protected animal preserves. The transportation of the eastern black rhinos from Europe will be the largest group to be sent from Europe back to Africa. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/ You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/3156b55232540a8bd15eade8e6866f03
