Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary

The Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary’s goal is to repopulate Uganda with rhinos and release them into the national parks.  Currently, there are no rhinos elsewhere in Uganda (besides two in a wildlife center), as they were poached to extinction here.  An ambitious goal but one they are doing a good job working towards.  If all goes as they plan, they should start introducing rhinos back into the parks (starting with Murchison) within the next 20 plus years.  It may seem like a long time from now, but it is actually pretty good considering that these guys are on the verge of being extinct all over the world.

The first person to greet us on our arrival to the Ziwa building was their friendly tamed warthog!  The warthog was found as an abandoned baby and raised by hand by the owners.  They tried to release her back to the wild, but she wouldn’t go, so now she hangs around the main building.  We were actually able to pet her, and it feels like petting a piece of leather that has wire bristles coming out of it.  While the warthog was fun, the rhinos were our reason for being there, so we joined a group with our friends who were also trekking for the rhinos.

Farcy the warthog.

Our trek to see the rhinos took all of about 5 minutes until we saw a mother and a baby rhino hanging out close to the path.  Usually, you have to walk or drive for a while to see the rhinos so we were very lucky.  The mom and baby didn’t seem to want us around as they kept moving farther and farther away from us.  Not getting the hint, we followed the pair for a while until they walked us right into another set of rhinos; 2 females and one male.  The males in the park have their horns cut (they grow back) since one of the males had killed another in a territorial dispute over the summer.  Not wanting to lose any more rhinos, Ziwa decided to cut all of the male’s horns so that they could still fight but not kill each other.  The rhinos made their way back to the main building and started grazing outside of a worker’s house.  We saw a guy open the front door, look at the rhinos, and then close it like nothing special was going on.  How crazy must it be to open your door and have 3 rhinos sitting outside of it?  Sorry, I’m going to be late to work today, my driveway is blocked by rhinos!

For all our pictures from Ziwa, check out our SmugMug.

Mama with her baby, who is currently the youngest but a new baby is due any day by another rhino.

They did not like us following them.

Katie & Greg with a male & two females in the background.

Greg & Dad with the three rhinos.

Why did the rhino cross the road?

Hanging out by the ranger's home.

It’s sad to know that these are the only rhinos in Uganda, but hopefully, everything goes as planned for Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary and rhinos will one day live as wild animals in the parks again.