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Rhinos Are Back In Mozambique. They Went Extinct 40 Years Ago

July 5, 2022

Over four decades after they became extinct locally, rhinos are once again roaming the wilds of Mozambique.

The Peace Parks Foundation (PPF) has moved black and white rhinos from South Africa to Mozambique's Zinave National Park, which has over 400,000 hectares and more than 2,300 other reintroduced animals.

This initiative is a part of a campaign to save the endangered species by relocating them to safe havens where they have a chance to increase their population.

"Rhinos are important to the ecosystem, which is one of the reasons why we're moving them all this distance and doing all this effort to get them there," Kester Vickery, a conservationist who is supervising the rhino translocation told Reuters.

PPF is hoping to relocate over 40 rhinos in the next two years to Mozambique. The project manager, Anthony Alexander, said that the group has already brought in certain predators and many elephants to the park and that it was now rhinos' turn.

"It's very exciting now to complete the presence of historical species in the park," Alexander said.

"We are effectively spreading our eggs and putting them in different baskets," Vickery said, adding that he hoped to see a thriving population of white rhinos in Zinave in 10 years.