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| Location: |
Africa - Eastern Africa - Uganda |
| Subject: |
Distribution - Records |
| Species: |
White Rhino |
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This article summarizes some of the results of a visit paid to the West Nile District of Uganda in July-August, 1962, with the object of studying the White Rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum) in its native habitat. Its conclusions are based both upon official departmental reports and upon information received privately from officers of the Uganda Game and Agriculture Departments, from residents in the West Nile District and from others, to whom individual acknowledgment is made below.
In Uganda the White Rhinoceros is now restricted to the Madi, West Madi, and Aringa counties of the West Nile District, where, despite protection and the ceaseless vigilance of the Game Department Officers, its numbers have decreased alarmingly in the last half-dozen years, so that today probably not more than 80 animals remain in a strip of terrain some 70 miles long by 20 to 30 miles wide and one which, until now, offered this species ideal living conditions.
The.accompanying sketch map of the West Nile District of Uganda shows its counties and certain of its townships, of which Rhino Camp is perhaps the most well known. Some 50 years ago it was the apltly chosen and rewarding headquarters of Theodore Roosevelt when collecting Ceratotherium material on behalf of the Smithsonian African Expedition.
It was here also that, 30 years ago, Captain Pitman could encounter 30 to 40 animals (often in groups of 7 or 8 or more) within a day's walk and could approach to within 7 or 8 feet of individuals, so unaffrighted were they, because unharried bv hunters and poachers.
Brooks (1962) estimated that in 1928 the number of animals in the West Nile District was 130. By 1939 this number had increased to 220, but thereafter no specimen was ever seen south of Pakwach. By 1948 numbers had dropped to 190, and the animals had finally left the vicinity of Rhino Camp because of the invasion of their terrain by increasing native settlement. By 1951 the total White Rhinoceros population of the West Nile District was estimated to be 300 or so animals and, in 1955, to be some 350 animals. In 1958 Heppes estimated that 335 white rhinoceros survived in the Aringa and West Madi counties of the West Nile District. Thus 5 or 6 years ago the total Uganda White Rhinoceros population stood at some 350 animals. Today (1962-63) probably no more than 80 individuals remain (Captain Pittman puts their number at 70-75).
The alarming decline in numbers is more clearly set out thus
Estimated Total Uganda
White Rhinoceros Population.
1928, 130 animals
1939, 220
1948, 190
1951, 300+
1955, 350
1958, 335
1962, 80
This surviving White Rhinoceros population is disposed as indicated in the sketch map: about 25-30 animals inhabit Aringa and West Madi counties and not more than 50 inhabit Madi county about Inde.
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The white rhinoceros in Uganda
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