After taking a safari to Kenya in 1988, I learned how fragile the existence of the mighty rhinoceros is.
Late one afternoon, while visiting Meru National Park, our guide, Robert Carr-Hartley, asked if the group I was with wanted to see rhinos "up close and personal." Being avid photographers and naturalists, we all jumped into the Land Rovers and headed for the depths of the park.
Suddenly Robert stopped and pointed out the window. Only 50 yards away were five white rhinos.
They were huge - packed from heals to horns with enormous prehistoric power. Robert explained that the white, or square-lipped, rhino is second only to elephants as the largest living land mammal. The white rhino's name, he went on to say, has nothing to do with its color; "white" is a corruption of the Africaans word Veit, for wide, referring to the shape of the species' mouth.
Robert greeted two guards in Swahili. We walked much closer... very slowly. My every instinct said to flee. Scenes form the TV series "Daktari" flew through my mind: ornery rhinos charging the hunters' trucks; horns knifing through metal doors. Here we were, on foot, shooting with motorized cameras!
The guards explained, via Robert, that the five white rhinos had been relocated in 1962 to Meru from reserves in South Africa. White rhinos are not native to Kenya. This group and others were relocated to relieve overcrowding in the South African parks (see "White Rhino Survival Status"). Since the move, the rhinos had been under 24-hour guard. During the day, the rhinos grazed in the open, and then spent the night in a corral.
It was clear that after interacting with the guards for many years, the Meru rhinos had become semi-domesticated. There was a camaraderie between man and beast. The guards had pet names for the horned behemoths and guided them with gently calls.
One of the guards asked if I would take his picture.
I nodded and lifted my Polaroid camera. He moved in tight, clasping the end of a rhino's tail.
Carr-Hartley laughed. "He thinks Nikons are cheap and useless, but your camera must be very expensive because it spits the picture out right away."
As we drove away in the fading light, I saw the guard slip the picture into his breast pocket and button the flap. He patted it as if it held a treasured possession.
A few days after returning home from Africa, I read a newspaper item stating that the five white rhinos in Meru National Park had been slaughtered by poachers. I put down the paper and phoned a journalist in Nairobi, hoping the story wasn't true.
With mounting horror, I learned that on the evening of October 30, under cover of darkness, 30 armed poachers had sneaked into Meru. Some of them surrounded the warden's house and opened fire with machine guns. Others sprayed bullets at the armory where the park rangers were sleeping. As the guards dove for cover, the rest of the gang charged into the corral and gunned down the five rhinos. Then they cut off the animal's horns with chainsaws and vanished into the bush.
After 27 years, all he has is a picture of himself holding a rhino by the tail.
