As the 231-foot long Boeing 747 made its final approach above Kigali International Airport in Rwanda’s capital city, Jes Gruner, park manager at Akagera National Park, looked on nervously. He had been following the progress of this flight’s passengers ever since they boarded a fleet of cargo trucks at the Phinda Private Game Reserve in South Africa, almost 30 hours before. When the chartered flight was delayed for eight hours at the Durban airport, he worried that the passengers, sedated and enclosed in individual crates, would suffer from dehydration.
After the plane landed, Gruner’s first question to the six veterinarians who disembarked was, “Are they alright?” The team immediately reassured him that the passengers — 30 adult southern white rhinoceroses — were fantastic. They had fared well despite the extended length of their transnational journey.
“It was a huge relief,” Gruner says.
But before the rhinos could take their first ...
