Travel Guide Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary

While the total rhino population in Uganda was close to 400 in the 1960s, it was reduced to a trickle in the 1970s due to heavy poaching and the destruction of many natural habitats, and was declared "extinct" in 1983. On a continental scale, the situation remains alarming: the lucrative trafficking of rhino horns to the Asian market (where the horn powder, supposed to have aphrodisiac virtues, is sold at US$60,000 per kilogram) perpetuates poaching. However, initiatives are flourishing to protect the powerful mammal (a white rhino can weigh up to 3 tons). This is the case in Uganda, where the NGO Rhino Fund Uganda was created in 1997 with the aim of restoring rhino numbers before reintroducing them into the country's parks and reserves. With this in mind, the organization set up the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary on a 7,000 ha plot of wooded savannah. Six white rhinos from Kenya and Disney's Animal Kingdom (USA) were introduced into the protected area in 2005-2006. After the birth of a stillborn calf in 2008, the first "baby" rhino was born in June 2009: this young male was named Obama because his mother was American and his father Kenyan... This birth, the first in nearly 30 years in Uganda, was followed by many others: today 32 rhinos roam the sanctuary