A Record Breaking World Rhino Day
Every year on September 22nd, the International Rhino Foundation recognizes World Rhino Day as day of awareness for the threats facing all five rhino species, and celebrates rhinos and all those around the world who care about them. Despite the challenges of this year, Team Rhino rallied together and broke all kinds of records, making this our most successful World Rhino Day awareness campaign to date.
The more people that know about rhinos and the threats they face, the better chance all five species have to thrive. We asked you, Team Rhino, to help us ‘keep the five alive,’ and you came through in a big way.
On World Rhino Day – Tuesday, September 22, 2020:
- We welcomed more than 220 new followers/subscribers to Team Rhino.
- More than 4,200 of you visited our website or blog to learn more about rhinos and how we’re helping them.
- You liked, commented, retweeted/shared, and mentioned the International Rhino Foundation almost 6,000 times!
- That led to more than 100,000 people seeing our posts in ONE DAY. That doesn’t include all the posts you created and shared about rhinos – those helped the awareness spread even further!
- We sold 350 World Rhino Day shirts at Bonfire- more than any other World Rhino Day! And our rhino shop had one of the best days of the year so far.
All of this awareness inspired about $14,000 in donations for rhino conservation – by far our most successful World Rhino Day to date! We’re also fortunate enough to have several partners who hosted World Rhino Day fundraising events on our behalf, which is of course even more protection for rhinos.
No matter how big or small, any action you took for World Rhino Day SAVED RHINOS. And for that we thank you.
World Rhino Day Virtual Events
For the first time ever on World Rhino Day, we hosted a full day of virtual events with IRF staff, partners, and special guests from around the world. We’ve got the full line-up below, in case you missed anything:
World Rhino Day Virtual Events
- Rhino Talk on Flooding and Artificial Highlands in India with Dr. Bibhab Talukdar, Chair of the Asian Rhino Specialist Group and the International Rhino Foundation’s Asian Rhino Program Coordinator. Our Kick-off Rhino Talk originally appeared on Instagram but can now also be seen on our YouTube channel:
- Our Executive Director, Nina Facsione, presented the 2020 State of the Rhino across all channels, detailing conservation updates for all five rhino species:
- IRF’s Deputy Director, CeCe Sieffert, joined ‘Exploring by the Seat of Your Pants’ for a virtual education talk on Sumatran and Javan rhinos. This live event was simulcast into virtual classrooms across the country allowing students to participate and ask questions about rhinos.
- Next, Twitter got access to an exclusive Rhino Talk on Assisted Reproduction Technology Advancements with Dr. Budhan Pukazhenthi of the Smithsonian’s National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute. This talk is now available for everyone here.
- Then, for our YouTube subscribers we premiered a Rhino Talk about Black Rhino Conservation in Zambia. We spoke with Ed Sayer, project leader for Frankfurt Zoological Society’s North Luangwa Conservation Program.
- Streaming live back on Facebook, Communications Director Chris Whitlatch joined tech podcast ‘AwesomeCast’ to talk technology and rhino conservation.
- We concluded the day on Facebook with several rounds of Rhino Bingo, or R-H-I-N-O, a requested return from our Virtual Cinco de Rhino this past May.
World Rhino Day may officially be just one day of the year, but for us and the people in the field working to protect rhinos, it’s everyday. You can help ‘keep the five alive’ every day of the year with any of these simple actions. As you can see, when we all take action, it adds up and makes a big difference for rhinos.
We’d love to hear from you!
We hope you enjoyed celebrating World Rhino Day 2020 as much as we did. We’re already thinking about WRD 2021, so please let us know in the comments what you liked best or what we could do more of, to make next year’s event even better.
One thought on “A Record Breaking World Rhino Day”
Woow!! Very good. Its Wonderful to this Foundation.
On Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 18:32 The International Rhino Foundation Blog wrote:
> rhinosirf posted: ” Every year on September 22nd, the International Rhino > Foundation recognizes World Rhino Day as day of awareness for the threats > facing all five rhino species, and celebrates rhinos and all those around > the world who care about them. Despite the chall” >