Nairobi - Five of the last remaining highly endangered northern white rhinos in the wild are to be airlifted from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Kenya in the coming weeks to protect them from extinction at the hands of poachers.
The rhinos, from the DRC's Garamba National Park, where their population has been decimated in recent years by poachers and civil war, are to be moved to a wildlife reserve in Kenya, a lead conservationist on the project has said.
"We shall be flying the rhinos as soon they can be safely captured," said Kes Hillman Smith, the Nairobi-based co-ordinator of the Rhino Project at International Rhino Foundation, also an adviser at the Garamba park.
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"This is the safest means of securing the subspecies from extinction," she said, adding that the DRC government had approved the step last week after being told of the rhinos' precarious continued existence.
Kinshasa has approved the rescue and removal of five adult and juvenile northern white rhinos - two males and three females - from Garamba. The plan calls for the rhinos to be tranquillised before the start of the rainy season in February and flown by military transport plane or helicopter to a private reserve. - Sapa-AFP
- This article was originally published on page 8 of The Mercury on January 19, 2005
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