Selous Rhino Project
Background Information
The Selous Game Reserve is one of the last great wildernesses in Africa. At over 48,000km2 it is the second largest World Heritage Site in the world - larger than Denmark! In the 1960’s it was estimated to be home to over 3,000 black rhino. By 1980, it was feared that they had become extinct after the wave of heavy poaching that swept through Africa that also reduced the population of elephants in the Selous from about 120,000 to 30,000.
Selous Rhino Project
The Selous Rhino Project (SRP) works to protect the remnant rhino populations and has proven its value by finding that there are two viable reproducing populations of rhino in the northern sector of at least 19 or 20 individuals with more sighted in four core zones in the south. The total population in the Selous is estimated to be between 50 and 100 rhinos in total. This is the largest natural, endemic and wild population of Black rhinos in Tanzania and one of the largest in Africa.
Training by the project has enabled a core of 12 rangers to maintain basic rhino monitoring. This has been enhanced with regular aerial monitoring using the Super Cub of the Conservation Action Trust. Aerial reconnaissance has facilitated over 20 rhino sightings in the last few months and led to the development of a photographic ID file linked to footprint measurements taken by the rangers on the ground.
Worryingly the rangers have come across increasing incidents of poaching of other species in the rhino home ranges. Elephant and hippo in particular are suffering as they are more numerous than the rhino. The combination of air/ground operations has led to several successful anti-poaching operations with the rangers being directed onto the poachers from the team in the air.
Tusk Support
Tusk has been instrumental to the anti-poaching work of the Trust by providing, through a recent donation from the Rufford Maurice Laing Foundation, two ranger vehicles and funds to maintain and equip them.
Comments from the field
“The vehicles purchased by the Tusk grant are a vital part of the project. Without a vehicle the rangers cannot patrol the rhino ranges and surrounding areas to protect them ”
Fraser Smith, Selous Rhino Project
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