VIRTUAL DEHORNING PROTECTS AFRICAN RHINOS
Read about how our Virtual Volunteer Trip this month enabled 7 rhinos to be safely dehorned and brought almost 100 people to the field virtually to generate much-needed funding for wildlife conservation in Southern and Central Africa.
Amy and Ulrico, filmmakers from Habitat XR standing next to 1 of the 7 rhinos dehorned for the Virtual Volunteer Trip.
Responding to urgent requests from wildlife reserves facing severe budget cuts due to the loss of tourism revenue & the cancellation of planned conservation field trips to South Africa , Wild Tomorrow Fund and Florida-based wildlife conservation charity Reclaimed Earth partnered up to create an innovative Virtual Volunteer Trip to help plug the conservation funding gap caused by the COVID pandemic.
“Without paying guests at lodges and park gate fees, wildlife reserves across the country are experiencing a drastic loss of revenue that would usually pay for operating costs including ranger salaries, fuel for patrols, helicopter time and other basic essentials needed to keep wildlife safe. It is wonderful to be able to engage volunteers virtually, to bring help and relief to our neighboring reserves like our friends at Manyoni”
While we wish we could bring guests to the field in person, we decided on the next best thing: bring volunteers from around the world to join us virtually to contribute to wildlife conservation.
The week-long trip ran from August 17th to the 22nd with daily interactive experiences designed to transport volunteers from their homes to the wild places of South Africa and Florida. Volunteers from around the world including Australia, South Africa, El Salvador, and across the United States joined virtually alongside field conservationists and rangers for an hour each morning and afternoon. They were able to join either for the full week, or pick and choose the conservation topics they are most interested in each day.
Wild Tomorrow Fund’s newest ranger Sphiwe participating in the bird banding survey on August 9-10th, which was funded by the Virtual Volunteer Trip.
Each ticket ($25 per session or $250 for the full week) was a donation that directly funded the conservation work in South Africa that volunteers learnt about and experienced virtually, including supporting anti-poaching rangers, orphaned elephants and rhinos, a bird-banding survey and more.
As a highlight planned for the final day of the trip on Saturday August 22nd, volunteers will take part in an immersive 360 degree virtual rhino dehorning experience filmed at Manyoni Private Game Reserve thanks to wildlife filmmakers HabitatXR who most recently filmed mountain gorillas in Rwanda for Ellen DeGeneres’ wildlife foundation, The Ellen Fund. By participating in the experience, the volunteers directly financed the rhino’s protection. Without this trip and the funds raised, these rhinos would not have been able to be dehorned and would be at higher risk of poaching.
Wild Tomorrow Fund South Africa’s Clinton Wright holds the horn of a dehorned rhino.
It is the poaching of rhinos to supply the illegal international rhino horn trade that remains the main threat to the two species. The African rhinos dehorned at Manyoni Private Reserve were 5 White Rhinos and 2 Critically Endangered Black Rhino.
More than 80% of African rhinos that remain in the world are in South Africa, making it a hotspot for rhino poaching. The value of rhino horn on the black market is said to be as high as $80,000 per kilogram, making it one of the most expensive commodities in the world, carrying an illegal price tag higher than cocaine or gold. It is this market price that puts wild rhinos at terrible risk. Dehorning is one of the strategies in the rhino anti-poaching toolkit which involves the humane removal of the horn to disincentivize poachers. The process must be repeated every 18-24 months as the horns regrow naturally. Without paying guests, many wildlife reserves including Manyoni Private Game Reserve in South Africa, have been unable to fund urgent work such as dehornings.
“Dehorning a rhino costs a lot of money, we did not have the funds to dehorn a single rhino for three months. Rhino horn grows back and we need to dehorn one rhino a week on average in order to stay ahead of horn growth and the resulting increase in poaching risk. We were able to make a significant amount of time back with the funding from the virtual trip and dehorning seven rhino in one day.”
The 7 rhinos dehorned for the volunteer trip were all identified as ‘priority' rhinos’ by the reserve. These are rhinos that the wildlife management team deemed as a priority to dehorn because they have horns that have grown back long and are ready for another dehorning, or they have a calf that has never been dehorned but is ready to now, or need a dehorning but are often hard to find.
It’s not too late to join in the trip and support wildlife conservation in the field during the pandemic from the safety of your home. Sign-up for tomorrow’s finale, and have the chance not only to experience a rhino dehorning in 360, but to meet Wildlife Vet Mike Toft, Manyoni Private Reserve Manager Karen Odendaal and Wildlife Coordinator Dane Antrobus. Together they will brief participants on the procedure and guest safety before the dehorning begins (just as they would do in the field) and then answer questions during live Q&A.
If you’re unable to join but would like to support our rhino conservation program and support reserves like Manyoni in our area, please donate here: www.wildtomorrowfund.org/protect-rhinos