Notes from the Field: The Saga of an Earless Black Rhino in Zimbabwe

In October of 1992, Raoul du Toit was implementing a project to establish rhino breeding groups on private lands in Zimbabwe. 

Then, finally, Raoul – IRF’s senior advisor for African rhinos and director of the Lowveld Rhino Trust in Zimbabwe – received permission to capture the few black rhinos that still survived in the heavily-poached Zambezi Valley. 

It was the hottest time of the year, a bad time to catch rhinos, but the threat to them was so severe that every opportunity had to be taken. 

The operation was not well supported by the National Parks field staff due to controversy over the translocation program, but eventually the Parks rangers agreed to help find the surviving rhinos so they could be moved to safer areas. 

The rangers began their search and discovered fresh rhino tracks. A black rhino cow and calf were found near Pfumbe Hill, a distinctive feature in the Zambezi Valley surrounded by a vast expanse of hot, dry thickets. Raoul flew there in a Husky aircraft, and after the rangers helped direct him over the radio, he located the rhinos and circled them before calling in a helicopter with a veterinarian to dart them. The Parks rangers felt they had done what they agreed to do and left.  

Because of the dense thickets, the helicopter had to land about a mile away from the drugged rhinos while Raoul directed the vet in on foot, alone. Raoul couldn’t leave until sunset, despite the aircraft oil temperature creeping well above the red line in the hot conditions, as he was directing a ground crew to chop a track for a truck to collect the rhinos. 

After being sedated, the rhinos had fallen some distance from each other. During the night, while awaiting the truck, the vet had to run between the cow and calf to fend off hyenas that still succeeded in chewing the ears of the calf. Eventually the cow was loaded into a crate, but succumbed to radial paralysis as the lone vet tried but was unable to keep turning her over to avoid nerve compression. 

The now-orphaned calf, Fumbi, was moved to Mkashi Ranch in Bubiana Conservancy. She was joined by another orphaned black rhino calf called Tella. The pair hung out with dairy cows initially and then joined the growing Bubiana black rhino population. 

These rhino cows lived in the wild without any human contact for the next decade, until a change in land ownership converted their bush home into paddocks amidst snare-riddled patches of bush. 

Tella and Fumbi were translocated to the safer Bubye Valley Conservancy. This time Fumbi had her own calf, a three-month-old female, who had to be restrained with difficulty. 

After being caught by hand, Fumbi’s calf was loaded into a helicopter and flown to the holding pens at Bubye Valley Conservancy, to be rejoined with her mother hours later. 

Fumbi apparently remembered her orphan days from a decade prior and instantly accepted human presence, approaching her attendants for hand-feeding despite having such a young calf at foot.

Ongoing monitoring by the Lowveld Rhino Trust has shown that, in the wild, Fumbi is a fiercely protective and successful mother. In January of 2025, at the age of 33, she gave birth to a new calf, her eighth in Bubye Valley Conservancy.