Loss and Hope
““No one in the world needs a rhino horn but a rhino” ”
In January this year (2025) I went to Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya with a group of clients and Wildmanrouse, I had been there the year before on a recce without clients and we had visited Baracka a blind Black Rhino who lived as an ambassador in the Morani Information Centre. For the clients trip we had planned in a visit to Fatu and Najin the last two Northern White Rhino’s left on planet earth.
This afternoon will stay with me until I die, I don’t exaggerate, its hard to put into words how I felt sitting in a paddocked off field looking at an entire species, emotionally I was all over the place. Anger, sorrow, amazement, hope, I felt them all, those that know me well will be surprised at my emotions, I have been likened to a robot in the past!
And questions, how could we let this happen, how did it get so bad, how can people in this day and age still believe keratin, calcium and melanin has superpowers. What can be done? I had just had a great briefing by Zach before going into the paddock and he went through everything explaining about the species and the plans for the future but that all went out the window when I saw those two beautiful animals slowly wander over to us.
Najin (right) is the mother of Fatu (left) they were both translocated to Ol Pejeta in 2009 from a Czech zoo in the hopes that they would breed but unfortunately neither can carry a calf to term. The rhino in the centre is a sterile male Southern White who lives with the females.
In an attempt to save the species scientists have harvested eggs from both females until 2021 when Najin was retired due to her age. Fatu is still having eggs harvested, she had just had some taken the morning of our visit and was still groggy from the anaesthetic.
This is why the sterile male lives with them, when Fatu is ovulating the male will show the keepers through his behaviour that she has eggs. A vet team fly in and extract the eggs which have to be flown to a laboratory in Italy within 24 hours to be viable.
Zach the keeper was amazing and before going in the paddock he explained how the Rhino had disappeared, civil war, poaching for Chinese medicine and habitat loss all contributed to the decline of the population.
ABOVE Najin at 32mm focal length
I was shooting using my low angle set up as Najin came over to investigate, I only just managed to lift it up before she was able to investigate it with her mouth.
Fatu was much slower due to her earlier anaesthetic, I could hear her slow deep breathing as she walked and could see her eyes slowly closing as she moved and grazed.
I’ve photographed many things over the course of my Army career, combat, injuries, earthquakes in Nepal, Ebola in Sierra Leone but nothing had such an affect on me as this afternoon.
An entire species able to fit in one frame of my camera it was a very profound thing to be doing, I felt exhausted afterwards, perhaps it was the range of emotions I had gone through.
There is hope for the species, an international team are working on in vitro fertilisation (IVF) to insert an egg into a surrogate Southern White Rhino in the hopes of saving them. The team had its first IVF pregnancy in January 2024 but the pregnant rhino later died of unrelated illness.
A post mortem showed the male foetus was doing well and estimated a 95% chance of survival had the mother lived. Zach told us the team has over 30 eggs ready for IVF so the future looks a little brighter for the species.
Ol Pejeta Conservancy is a shining example of conservation both in Kenya and worldwide, They have had zero rhino poached there in the last 7 years.
ABOVE The stones under the tree each have a Rhino’s details on a small plaque.
There is a memorial that sits under a tree in the shadow of Mount Kenya to all the Rhino that were poached in the past. Every Rhino in the conservancy is visually checked every 4 days by the rangers to protect them for the future.
To support Ol Pejeta or Rhinos in general you can adopt Fatu or just donate to the cause to support the work they do by clicking here.