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Meet
the Orphans – Part 1
Blondie was
orphaned at five months old when his mother was shot by poachers for his
horn
Blondie, a young male
rhino, was born in April 2008. He is the oldest and largest of the three
youngsters, and is the only small calf with ear notches (these notches are
made to identify and monitor individual rhinos). Blondie was orphaned on
August 3rd, 2008, in the Midlands Conservancy, when his mother
Tapiwa was shot by poachers.
Early in the evening of
August 3rd, the Lowveld Rhino Trust received a message that a
female rhino had been shot by poachers, leaving behind a four-month-old
orphaned calf requiring capture and care.
The capture team
hurriedly made arrangements and arrived on site early the next morning,
August 4th, where they found the young calf huddling beside his
dead mother. The team darted the calf and put him in a modified game capture
crate for transport. The team arrived with the young rhino at the orphan
calf pens at around 1:00 am on August 6th – keeper Blondie
Leathem’s 50th birthday. The calf was named Blondie, in honor of
the man who would become his “foster father.”
Once the calf was
offloaded, his human keepers tried to get him to take a bottle of milk –
often a difficult process for young rhinos only used to nursing from their
mothers. To stimulate the suckling reflex, veterinarian Dr. Chris Foggin
massaged the calf's tongue while inserting the milk bottle. At the end of a
very long and tiring day, Chris did not notice that his thumb had slipped
sideways between the calf's teeth. The resulting sound was exactly like what
you hear when an adult rhino bites through a branch. Fortunately Chris’s
finger remained intact, though very misshapen. |