A coalition of international NGOs and the Indonesian government have banded together to put a plan into action.Īll in all, the 93-mile drive from West Kutai to the nearest rehabilitation center in Kelian was completed just as the sun was coming up on Tuesday morning. The smallest rhino species also is the smallest in numbers. And a police escort ensured that the convoy wasn’t bogged down by curious onlookers and other distractions. Veterinarians from Indonesia, Malaysia, and Australia worked together to ensure her safety and comfort all along the way.Īt the same time, a local mining company sent a bulldozer to travel with the team in order to clear debris from the roads that had washed out due to heavy rains. Transporting a large, wild animal is always a delicate process, but when you consider that Pahu was captured in a remote mining concession in the middle of a lowland rainforest, the tale of her extraction starts to sound Herculean.įor starters, Pahu was given a sedative before being guided into a crate, which was then secured inside of a truck. If we want to save this species, we need the strong support of other individuals and organizations.” It takes a village to move a rhino “The Sumatran rhino is one of the most evolutionarily distinct mammals on the planet, and this week’s rescue is a critical step in making sure we don’t lose an entire branch of the rhino tree of life,” said Jonathan Baillie, executive vice president and chief scientist at the National Geographic Society, which is a partner of the Sumatran Rhino Rescue. “This means that the captive breeding program will be embarking on an expansion.” “When a population is down to 80 animals, every animal becomes very, very important,” says Susie Ellis, executive director of the International Rhino Foundation. A year after the study concluded, Lucy kept getting the supplement and remained healthy.Please be respectful of copyright. Young ’s supplements helped the rhinos maintain their linolenic acid and linoleic acid levels in a healthy balance. The researchers concluded that supplementation with W.F. Luyisa showed the same potentially harmful changes in her fatty acid ratio that Lucy had experienced. Meanwhile, another three-year-old, female black rhino, named Luyisa, arrived from Africa. She showed no signs of the health problems that had threatened her life earlier. Lucy, the initially ill rhino, received the supplement, but not the imported fodder. The researchers observed no negative side effects. Over four months, the rhinos’ fatty acid ratio improved. The rest of the rhino’s food consisted of alfalfa hay, a ground aspen pelleted feed from Purina, small amount of oranges, a salt block and various plants to browse on, such as mulberry, honeysuckle and willow. After those initial levels were established, the rhinos received The Missing Link supplements containing 50 percent linolenic acid and 18 percent linoleic acid. The researchers measured the fatty acid profiles in five black rhinos’ blood. However, within a year of her arrival, the rhino suffered two bouts of anemia, hyperbilirubinemia (overabundance of a chemical formed when red blood cells break down), hypercalcemia (overabundance of calcium in the blood) and other health problems. The three-year-old rhino had a healthy ratio of linoleic to linolenic acid when she first arrived. michaeli), named Lucy, came to the United States from Addo Elephant Park in South Africa. The benefits of balanced fatty acid supplementation were particularly critical for one rhino, wrote the researchers. For rhinos and other animals, a proper ratio may be more important than the overall levels of the essential fatty acids, wrote a Kansas City zoo veterinarian and a Wildlife Conservation Society scientist in the Proceedings of the American Association of Zoo Veterinarians Conference. That Missing Link supplement provided the rhinos with a ratio of the omega-6 fatty acid, linoleic acid, to the omega-3 fatty acid, alpha linolenic acid, that seemed to benefit the endangered species’ health.
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