|
|
|
|
| |
| Location: |
Africa - Eastern Africa - Uganda |
| Subject: |
Distribution - Records |
| Species: |
White Rhino |
 |
|
|
Ceratotherium simum. But in the Ajai-Inde Swamps and the Otze and Kei Sanctuaries poaching was so heavy that the population dropped from over 335 in 1958 to a mere 80 in 1962. The East African Wildlife Society and WWF provided funds to establish the Ajai Game Reserve to give more stringent protection, but numbers continued to decline - as the table shows. By 1967 there were only 60 white rhino in Ajai Reserve. In 1975 the National Wildlife Committee of Uganda regretfully recorded the white rhino absent in Mount Kei and Otze and other areas; a few survived in the Ajai Game Reserve and in the north-west sector of Kabalega Falls National Park. In February 1978 the present author found only six adults and one juvenile during a ground search in the Ajai. In February 1979 the Game Warden, Ben Kidi (pers. cornm.) believed that no more than four white rhino survived in Ajai. During the 1979 liberation war the white rhinoceros was feared poached out of existence, and at the end of February 1980, during a three-hour aerial search, the author saw none, although two individuals had been reported by rangers six weeks previously. Again in April 1980, in an aerial census with Dr Douglas-Hamilton and Dr Malpas, none were seen, and in a final aerial survey in July 1980 none was seen in Kabalega Park or Ajai Game Reserve. Another independent ground count by Dr Malpas in May 1980 gave the same result.
|
|
|
White rhino extinct in Uganda
File available
details
Original text on this topic: