Crisis Zimbabwe Update – June 5, 2009

Although the challenges we face in Zimbabwe can seem overwhelming at times, our brave staff and partners remain dedicated to protecting Zimbabwe’s rhinos from poachers, and with the help they have received from donors around the world, they are succeeding. It doesn’t take much to make a difference:

• $10 feeds one young rhino orphan for a day, including skim milk powder, glucose, multivitamins, rice and cubes.
• $25 provides patrol rations — mealie meal, sugar beans, cooking oil, salt, sugar, tea and soap — for a rhino monitor for an entire month. (These basic commodities have become so difficult to find in Zimbabwe that they must be imported from South Africa.)
• $50 feeds all five calves currently under our care (three young calves and two older ones) for one day, including time and transport required to collect fresh browse for the older calves.
• $100 covers monitoring costs (staff and equipment) for a “crucial” rhino sighting. Our staff aim to find and identify each rhino in the Lowveld on a regular basis to help monitor and protect the population. “Crucial” sightings are of rhinos that have taken even more effort to find than usual, perhaps new-born calves that haven’t yet been recorded, or injured rhinos that need veterinary treatment.