via Animal Planet star rhino dies in Zimbabwe – Eye Witness News 10/04/2016
JOHANNESBURG – A rhino that featured in a popular television adventure series set in Zimbabwe has had to be put down after she was shot and seriously wounded by poachers.
Zimbabwe has only around 800 rhinos left after poachers last year killed around 50 rhinos countrywide.
Ntombe the rhino featured in Karina, Wild on Safari, a popular Animal Planet series five years ago.
It took game rangers several days to track down the eight-year-old rhino after shots were heard in the Matopos National Park.
The Bhejane Trust, a conservation group, said on Saturday that vets had to put her down as there was no possibility of saving her life.
It’s not clear yet where in the park Ntombe was shot.
Parts of it are an intensive rhino protection zone guarded around the clock by armed rangers.
COMMENTS
This government must get serious with the sentences given out to poachers who have actually been arrested. A slap over the wrist and a small fine isn’t enough. We need more people to come into Zimbabwe who are abk to train anti poaching units. Don’t have them chased out by CIO like they did to Rory Young.
Hmmm…Doris, I don’t think 9 years with labour is a slap on the wrist, so perhaps you need to check your facts.
Rory Young is a good example of someone who was doing something meaningful for conservation and not coining it along the way like the big overseas animal “charities”, but my take on his being chased out is that he was under as much flak from the various local conservation NGOs (of whom there are more than 30, all doing their own thing) than by the government. The government was used as a tool to get rid of him, though yes, they are complicit in the poaching.
There needs to be more coordination – not regulation – through Parks and Police of the various private anti-poaching operations, and Zimbabwe needs a veterinary approach like Saving the Survivors in South Africa.