Today we were supposed to be going to do buffalo, but it turned out they didn't have the right permits so we ended up not doing that! So it seemed we were in for another boring day at the clinic.
Around 10am we heard that a white rhino had been poached. One rhino was dead, and it had a 3 month old calf which was now orphaned, and they also shot a 2 month old calf in the leg. We had to go to rescue the 3 month calf, treat the 2 year old and then relocate the other rhino.
We got there and the owners of the reserve were trying to decide whether to hand raise the baby rhino themselves or send it to Moholoholo. I was desperate for them to send it to Moholo because I knew how excited everyone would be if a 3 month old white rhino calf arrived. So I was silently willing them to choose that option. The vet recommended that to send it Moholo would probably be best for the rhino because it is very difficult to raise a rhino calf and Moholo have already had experience raising them.
Anyway, we set out to try and find the baby. But we only had 20 mins on the helicopter we had. Nonetheless the vet made up the darts and went off to search for the calf. We followed closely the helicopter in a Bucky. However they couldn't find it and the helicopter time ran out.
So we waited for another helicopter to arrive. Meanwhile we went to look at the carcass of the poached rhino cow. It was very sad. The poor animal had been butchered to death. It appeared to have been shot twice, but was still possibly not dead so they slashed it along the back with an axe, and hacked off it's horns. Possibly while it was still alive. It also had a huge open wound around the lower abdomen. Someone originally thought that it may have been attacked by a hyena, but it wasn't the normal place for a hyena to attack, and you could see cut marks from knives. But why the poachers would remove meat I have no idea.
So then the helicopter arrived and the vet went off to find the calves. We set off after them in the Bucky, and we had travelled literally 100m when the 3 month old calf appeared out of the bush right next to the vehicle. 40 people had been looking for this baby all day and we just stumbled across it. So we had to go wave down the vet then go after it. When it was darted we used ropes to guide it into a trailer. He was very distressed. The owners originally took him back to look after him themselves but then changed their minds and took him to Moholo.
After that the vet went up in the helicopter to find the injured 2 year old.
When it had been darted it's gunshot wound had to be cleaned out. They gave it some painkiller and antibiotic then loaded it into a trailer.
We were originally going to relocate all the other rhino but by this time it was dark so we will have to return tomorrow.