A short film describing the work of UK charity, Save the Rhino International.
Save The Rhino! An Introduction with Mark Carwardine & Martina Navratilova from Gordon Main on Vimeo.
From Save The Rhino.org...
Rhino Mayday 2011Thanks to Events Manager Jo Paulson for the tip.
Wednesday 4 May 2011, 10.30 - 17.00
Huxley Conference Theatre, ZSL London Zoo
Tickets: £15
We are delighted announce that Save the Rhino will once again be organising Rhino Mayday. The event is intended as information-sharing and awareness-raising event for anyone with an interest in rhino conservation. We will have experts from many different areas of rhino conservation, from project field staff and conservation charities to academics and zoo personnel.
Confirmed speakers for this year's event include:*Speakers subject to change
- Professor Mike Bruford, School of Biosciences, Cardiff University
- Peter Carr, Editor, Sporting Rifle
- Maggie Esson, Education Programmes Manager, Chester Zoo
- John Gripper, Chairman, Sebakwe Black Rhino Trust
- Jasper Humphreys, Director of External Affairs, The Marjan Centre for the Study of Conflict and Conservation, King’s College London
- Inspector Nevin Hunter, Chief Wildlife Inspector, Wildlife Licensing and Registration Service at Animal Health
- Mark Jones, Programmes Director, Care for the Wild International
- Felix Patton
- Rebecca Perry, Conservation Officer, Colchester Zoo
- Simon Tonge, EAZA Chair & Executive Director, Paignton Zoo
- Berry White
- ZSL
The 2011 Rhino Mayday will be held on Wednesday 4 May in the Huxley Conference Theatre, ZSL London Zoo, Regent's Park, London (ZSL have, once again, kindly agreed to provide the venue free of charge).
Tickets cost £15 and can be purchased online from Save the Rhino’s website, by emailing events@savetherhino.org or by calling 020 7357 747.
For more information, visit www.savetherhino.org
On Wednesday 12 January 2011, Mark Carwardine provided an "entertaining and thought-provoking rhino evening" for Save the Rhino at The Royal Geographical Society. Save The Rhino have now provided downloadable audio from the event on their website.
Mark described some of his most memorable encounters with rhinos in Africa and Asia – from stalking the last surviving northern white rhinos in war-torn Zaire, nearly 25 years ago, to his most recent trip to photograph Sumatran rhinos in Indonesia. He revealed what went on behind the scenes while filming a Last Chance to See Special called Rhino Rescue, with Stephen Fry, and talked frankly about his hopes and fears for some of the most endearing and endangered mammals on Earth.
From Save The Rhino...
Last Chance to Save the Rhino
Wednesday 12 January 2011, 7.30pm
The Royal Geographical Society, London, SW7 2AR
Kindly sponsored by Abercrombie & Kent
Join Save the Rhino Patron and BBC Zoologist Mark Carwardine for an entertaining and thought-provoking rhino evening.
Mark will describe some of his most memorable encounters with rhinos in Africa and Asia – from stalking the last surviving northern white rhinos in war-torn Zaire, nearly 25 years ago, to his most recent trip to photograph Sumatran rhinos in Indonesia. He will reveal what went on behind the scenes while filming a Last Chance to See Special called Rhino Rescue, with Stephen Fry, and will talk frankly about his hopes and fears for some of the most endearing and endangered mammals on Earth.
Tickets cost £15 and are now on sale.
"Last Chance To See - The Complete Collection" will be released on the 15th of November, and is a special edition DVD featuring a new unseen episode called Last Chance To See - Return of The Rhino. The Return of the Rhino covers Stephen and Mark's adventure when they follow the return of Northern White Rhinos to Kenya from captivity in the Czech Republic.
From Save The Rhino...
Last Chance to Save the Rhino
Wednesday 12 January 2011, 7.30pm
The Royal Geographical Society, London, SW7 2AR
Kindly sponsored by Abercrombie & Kent
Join Save the Rhino Patron and BBC Zoologist Mark Carwardine for an entertaining and thought-provoking rhino evening.
Mark will describe some of his most memorable encounters with rhinos in Africa and Asia – from stalking the last surviving northern white rhinos in war-torn Zaire, nearly 25 years ago, to his most recent trip to photograph Sumatran rhinos in Indonesia. He will reveal what went on behind the scenes while filming a Last Chance to See Special called Rhino Rescue, with Stephen Fry, and will talk frankly about his hopes and fears for some of the most endearing and endangered mammals on Earth.
Tickets cost £15 and are now on sale.
Ever faithful reader David Haddock went to a recent talk by Mark Carwardine.
They hope to make "a few one hour Last Chance To See specials each year", and are off to Kenya soon to see how the Prague rhinos are getting on.
He also said that there are only 123 Kakapo as one was put down recently.
The Kakapo Recovery Programme website has more information on this sad news....
Old boy Sass farewelled
Sadly we euthanised one of our Stewart Island founder kakapo, Sass, yesterday. Sass had been of relatively poor condition for the last few years and has gone down hill steadily over the last 3 months.
He was extremely light weight, had developed cataracts in both eyes recently, and in the last few days appeared to have been suffering from kidney failure.
[...]
Sass's passing takes the world kakapo population to 123. He will be greatly missed, but his legacy lives on.
Via the Save The Rhino monthly newsletter we have a report at ETN on the progress of the Northern White Rhinos released this year in Kenya.
The Northern White Rhinos, donated by the Czech government in December of last year, have now started to roam freely on the Ol Pejeta Conservancy after being released from their smaller "bomas" into the wider area.
[...]
Richard Vigne, CEO of the Ol Pejeta Conservancy, has made it clear that they will be breeding hybrids for a while before sufficient numbers will then permit to cross them back towards nearly pure Northern White.
Berry White, formerly Head Rhino Keeper at Port Lympne Wild Animal Park in Kent, has been looking after the four Northern White Rhinos which where transferred to Ol Pejeta in northern Kenya in December. Here's an extensive interview with Berry at goallover.org about their progress.
NB – So how are the rhinos acclimatising to Kenya after so long in Europe?
BW – The rhinos have acclimatised brilliantly in Kenya since their arrival here in Africa from the Czech Republic on 20th December 2009. It was a pretty big transition for them. The week we left their old home at Dvur Kralove Zoo the temperature was minus 9 degrees. They were only going out from their lovely warm heated house and bedroom for about an hour a day!
Just seen this 5 minute video on the MSNBC.com homepage about the recent relocation of the Northern White Rhinos to Kenya from the Czech Republic.
There's some great additional footage here.
On February 23rd, Stephen Fry appeared with Craig Ferguson on a special edition of the Late Late Show, one-on-one, with no studio audience. Towards the end of the interview he discusses his participation in the recent trans-location of the Northern White Rhinos from a Czech Zoo back to Africa. It was a very enjoyable show I thought.
The four Northern White Rhinos recently transferred to Kenya from the Czech Republic have been dehorned, primarily to limit their value to poachers. Radio-transmitters have been attached to the horn stumps to assist in tracking the animals as they move further afield in their new enclosure. The Times of South Africa has the news.
"With the increase of poaching in Kenya, we are simply not taking any chances," Elodie Sampere from the Ol Pejeta Conservancy, which is overseeing the animals' acclimatisation told AFP.
[...]
Sampere said that sawing off the four Northern White rhinos' horns would also allow them to grow back straight.
"All the rhinos had horns that didn’t grow upright. This is a result of them being in the zoo and not having trees to rub against," she said.
BBC TV's "Last Chance To See" producer Tim Green recently left a comment on my New Year post confirming that they did indeed film Stephen Fry and Mark Carwardine following the translocation of four potentially fertile Northern White Rhino from the Czech Republic to Kenya. Here's a BBC News article about the rhino move.
Stephen Fry had been tweeting during the trip, before he took a sabbatical from Twitter to write the follow up to his fabulous "Moab is My Washpot" autobiography. The tweets raised the hope that they were filming a special episode of "Last Chance To See", and I was very happy to learn that they were.
No word on an air date for the Special yet, but the previous Northern White Rhino episode does get a repeat airing this week on BBC HD, Wednesday 00:30.
Many thanks to Tim Green for the update.
On December 19th, four Northern White Rhino's were flown to Kenya. RedOrbit has one of the news items.
Dana Holeckova, director of the Dvur-Kralove zoo in central Czech Republic said, "We must offer them this last chance, in their natural environment in Africa."Stephen Fry has been travelling with them and has been Tweeting again...
There's only eight remaining Northern White rhinos in existence all living in captivity, six at Dvur-Kralove and two more at San Diego Zoo in the United States.
[...]
The four being returned, two males and two females, will be transferred by air on December 19th.
Jambo! Just landed in Nairobi. Warm and sunny. More follows....It seems Stephen has been down in Kenya following the relocation of the Czech Republic Northern White Rhinos.
An hour away from rhinos arriving from Nairobi. Great excitement here at Ol Pejeta. Phone reception still dodgy tho.
Finally in land of signal. Rhino translocation went flawlessly, fantastically. So happy for Ol Pejeta, @FaunaFloraInt, Czech Rep zoo.
Landed. Despite the chill and damp of the old metrop it's good to be back. Operation Rhino fabulous success. Now let Christmas begin.
Whether or not they've been filming a Last Chance To See special I haven't figured out yet. Too busy to check right now, what with all the snow we've been having. 23 inches in 24 hours this weekend...
Amid the belief that they are now extinct in the wild, the only Northern White Rhinos remaining are in zoos in the Czech Republic and San Diego. Now scientists are divided on whether to move forward with a plan to transfer four rhinos from the Czech Republic zoo to a wildlife reserve in Kenya. The proposal is detailed in full at the International Rhino Foundation site.
The IRF, SRI, and most parties agree:
* Wild populations of NWR are likely extinct in DRC and the Sudan
* The remaining eight individuals in captivity are not reproductively ideal
* Steps to preserve genetic material from the captive population are needed immediately
* Crossing NWR with SWR is the only remaining option
However, the IRF and SRI do not endorse the concept that the only way to succeed with this effort is to move the remaining animals to Africa.
Additional coverage at ECOWorldly.com and TimesOfTheInternet. Having recently watched the related TV series episode this was interesting timing.
The hope of the NWR Conservation Project is that relocating the rhinos to a natural environment will stimulate breeding - and preserve critical genetic material by allowing NWR to breed with the far more numerous Southern white rhino. In addition, AI options are being explored.
[...]
Proponents acknowledge that while there is no way to predict whether or not moving the rhinos to Africa will result in successful breeding, they also point out that captive southern white rhinos do not have a strong record of reproduction in captivity - and require “wild supplements” from time to time.
This month's Save The Rhino newsletter reminded us that there's only a few tickets left for this special event at the Royal Geographical Society in London on Tuesday October 27th. Presented by Save The Rhino, join Stephen Fry and Mark Carwardine as they update us on their adventures filming and the experience of tracking species on the edge of extinction for the Last Chance To See TV series. The event starts at 7.30pm, and doors open at 6.30pm.
The BBC News site has a short article on this week's episode 2 of the TV series. "Last Chance to See - Northern White Rhino" is broadcast on BBC Two at 8p.m., on 13 September 2009. The page also features a video of Stephen's trek up to see the Mountain Gorillas, which he describes as "worth every sobbing, gasping, aching step". For right now, the video is not geographically restricted and available worldwide. Enjoy.
From this month's Save The Rhino newsletter, is exciting news of a special event at the Royal Geographical Society in London on Tuesday October 27th. Presented by Save The Rhino, join Stephen Fry and Mark Carwardine as they update us on their quest to follow up the story of the Northern white rhino from Last Chance To See. The event starts at 7.30pm, and doors open at 6.30pm.
In autumn 2009, BBC2 will be airing the Last Chance to See series showing Mark and Stephen on their journey to find species on the edge of extinction. These species are the:
Komodo Dragon
Blue Whale
Kakapo Parrot
Aye-aye
White Rhino
Manatee
On Tuesday 27 October Stephen and Mark will update us on their quest to find the Northern white rhino; the Northern white rhino lived, until recently, in Uganda, southern Chad, south-western Sudan, the eastern part of Central African Republic, and north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. However this has all changed and the Northern white rhino is unfortunately right on the brink of extinction due to poaching, civil unrest and corruption. Four individuals were seen in Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2006, but none have been seen there since, and no where else in the wild. There are 11 in captivity, in the Czech Republic and California, but they're not breeding. It is a desperate situation for the Northern white rhino so join us at the Royal Geographical Society in October to hear more about Stephen and Mark's journey.
To find out more about the Last Chance to See series and the Northern white rhino please follow the links.
Tickets will go on sale at the beginning of July but please e-mail fiona_AT_savetherhino.org to be notified when they do.
Clive Anderson appeals on behalf of Save the Rhino. Save the Rhino works to conserve viable populations of critically endangered rhinos in Africa and Asia.Listen now on the BBC Radio 4 website
From Save The Rhino's monthly newsletter...
BBC Radio 4 Appeal in aid of Save the Rhino International’s environmental education programmes in Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia.
Barrister, broadcaster, comedian and author Clive Anderson is to make an appeal on BBC Radio 4 on Sunday 24 May in aid of three environmental education programmes supported by Save the Rhino International. Clive was inspired by the late, great Douglas Adams, who spoke and wrote about the plight of one of the rhino species in his radio series and book, “Last Chance to See.”
Tune in to hear the appeal which will be broadcast on Sunday 24 May at 7.55am and repeated at 9.26pm and again on Thursday 28 May at 3.27pm at 92-95 FM & 198 LW. To learn more about the appeal please click here. Please tell friends and family to tune in too! Thank you.