Second largest land mammal
The white rhinoceros is the second largest land mammal in Africa in terms of
its dimensions, although the hippo may often be heavier. Male white rhinos
average over 2 000kg, while females are smaller at around 1 600kg. (Hippos can
weigh up to 3 200kg, while the white rhino rarely exceeds 2 200kg.)
Home
range and territory Adult females live in overlapping home ranges and
are rarely solitary. Mature females are usually accompanied by their most
recent offspring, and frequently associate with other females from the area.
Aggregations of a dozen or more may gather, particularly in the heat of the day
when shade or a cooling breeze is sought out.
Males are much less sociable and occupy
well-patrolled territories with numerous conspicuous dung middens (females and
immatures may add their own dung to a male's midden, but do not engage in the
male's characteristic kicking and urine spraying).
Females give birth to their first young at an age
of about seven years, after a 16-month gestation period. Weaning occurs at
about one year, but the calf remains with its mother for two to three years,
when the female is again ready to bear a new baby. Interestingly, (and in
contrast to the black rhino) the juvenile white rhino always runs ahead of its
mother when fleeing from danger. Other than man, the rhino has no natural
enemies, although lion and spotted hyena are a potential threat to youngsters.
Back from the brink Hundreds of years
ago, thousands upon thousands of white rhino would have occurred in the
grasslands and savannahs of Southern Africa. Wherever there was grass to eat
and water to drink, there would have been rhinos. The area of present day
Johannesburg in South Africa would have provided ideal habitat for hundreds of
these great pachyderms, with its sweet grasses, wooded kloofs (valleys) and
perennial water.
One can only imagine the wildlife spectacle that
endured before humans developed the ability to hunt and then plunder. Quite how
many rhinos were left when the first white settlers arrived on the scene around
200 years ago is uncertain, but wildlife had little aesthetic value in those
days, and almost anything was considered fair game to be shot on sight.
Just eighty years after having been "discovered"
(near present-day Kuruman) and named by William Burchell in 1817, the white
rhino had been hunted so excessively in South Africa and beyond, that just 30
individuals remained in a small corner of Zululand. After the establishment of
the Umfolozi Game Reserve in 1897, however, its numbers slowly increased so
that by the 1960s, surplus animals were translocated to other reserves so as to
ensure the conservation of the species. The Natal Parks Board can rightly claim
to have saved this great creature from extinction. Since 1960, over 3 000 white
rhino have been released from Umfolozi-Hluhluwe into reserves such as Mkuze,
Kruger, Pilanesberg, Phinda Private Game Reserve, Waterberg and Madikwe. Many
of these have subsequently sold rhino offspring to smaller sanctuaries.
Outside of South Africa, small numbers occur in the
Matopos near Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, and the Khama Rhino sanctuary near Gaborone,
Botswana, but attempts to reintroduce the species to Chobe in Botswana failed
due to uncontrolled poaching.
Sadly, the so-called Northern white rhino (a
sub-species of the southern white rhino) is all but extinct and the status of
the remaining handful of individuals is uncertain (it formerly occurred in
Uganda-Zaire-Sudan, and possibly in Tanzania and Kenya). The current status of
the southern white rhinoceros seems to be secure, with over 5 000 living
individuals. However, the security of the white rhino is dependent on continued
and rigorous protection, as well as the maintenance of its CITES Appendix 1
status, which prohibits trade in its horn.
Which is larger, more fearsome and most
endangered? Comparisons are often drawn between Africa's two rhino
species. Which is the larger, which is the most fearsome, and which is the most
endangered? The lumbering white rhino can easily lay claim to being the larger
- males may weigh up to 2 300kg, as opposed to 1 100kg of the black. However,
there is no doubt that the black rhino has the more uncertain temperament. The
population of white rhino is considered to be more secure than that of the
black, although it is more or less confined to South Africa.
African "Big Five"
