How Rhino Movement in the Greater Kruger Informs Reserve Management
IRF serves as a funder, partner, convener, facilitator and trainer for rhino conservation programs through in-country partners and staff to strengthen local rhino conservation efforts, engage people and protect rhino habitats.
Below is a blog written by one of IRF’s grantees, the Greater Kruger Environmental Protection Foundation (GKEPF), describing the group’s findings from monitoring rhino movement in the Greater Kruger area of South Africa.
We would also like to take this opportunity to express our deep sadness over the passing of Sharon Haussmann, GKEPF’s CEO. Sharon was a great friend to IRF and an inspiration in the world of conservation. She is missed dearly by all who knew her.
Earlier this year, a young male white rhino (Rhino 1) originally recorded in Sabi Sand Nature Reserve in South Africa was spotted in Balule – a straight-line distance of roughly 120 km, or about 75 miles.
But this rhino’s path was far from straight.
To get there, he would have travelled through protected areas across the Greater Kruger open system, likely skirting around the eastern community boundaries before heading northwest into Balule.
We will probably never know the exact route he took. Even the most direct path covers a remarkable distance for a young animal likely searching for territory of his own.
This is not an isolated case. Two rhinos from Klaserie have been recorded moving into Timbavati and Thornybush. Two others, initially from Timbavati, are now seen regularly in Thornybush. There is consistent movement between Klaserie and Balule, and one individual from Sabi Sand was even recently recorded in Sabie Game Park in Mozambique.
These records highlight that rhinos within the Greater Kruger system move freely across reserve boundaries, across provinces and, in some cases, across international borders.
This movement has several key implications. First, it shows rhinos within the Greater Kruger, the world’s largest free-roaming rhino population, really are free-roaming. Second, it is not accurate to think of a rhino as “belonging” to a single reserve and legally they are defined as res nullius, or ownerless, according to South African law. And third, thanks to the monitoring and monitoring technology across all GKEPF member reserves, we are better able to understand these movements and what they mean.
While only the rhinos translocated through African Parks’ Rhino Rewild initiative are fitted with tracking devices, movement data comes from manual identification using the ear-notch system.
Each rhino in the system has a unique set of notches, allowing rangers, monitors, tourists and researchers to identify individuals and build a broader picture of movement patterns, seasonal trends, social groupings and population structure and growth.
This information feeds directly into reserve management planning, allowing individual reserves to work together to protect a population that does not respect boundaries – because in a system as large as the Greater Kruger, no reserve can manage its rhino population in isolation.
