Reintroduction of black rhinoceros in the Sera Community Rhino Sanctuary, Kenya

Summary

Black rhino numbers across Africa collapsed from around 20,000 in 1970 to under 400 by 1990, driven almost entirely by poaching, and Kenya's surviving Eastern black rhinos, now roughly 75 percent of the subspecies' 886 remaining individuals, have mostly been confined to enclosed, guarded sanctuaries since. In May 2015, the Sera Community Conservancy in northern Kenya, part of the Northern Rangeland Trust, became the first community-owned and managed black rhino sanctuary in East Africa, following a habitat suitability study, environmental and disease-risk assessments, and roughly five years of construction on a 107 square kilometre solar-fenced sanctuary within the wider conservancy. After extensive community consultations, 13 rhinos, seven from Lewa Wildlife Conservancy and six from Lake Nakuru National Park, were captured by helicopter darting and trucked to Sera over a seven-day translocation effort in 2015, though three died from post-translocation complications linked to Sera's drier conditions compared with their source sites, halting the operation for review. Conservancy staff, trained beforehand at Lewa in standardized black rhino monitoring, fitted each animal with horn-mounted radio telemetry and individual ear notches; rhinos took three to six months to explore the fenced range, began pairing and mating within a year, and produced Sera's first calf in 2016 and a second, conceived on site, in 2017. The population has since grown to 12 individuals at a 20 percent annual growth rate. The project rates itself highly successful, crediting strong government, community and donor partnership.