Black Rhinos at Tswalu Game reserve in the Kalahari Desert, South Africa

There are two kinds of rhino called white and black but they are both
coloured white. The white rhinos lived further south than the black and were
discovered first and were called wide rhino on account of the width of their
mouth. Over the years this degraded into white rhino. Then the black rhino
was discovered. It is smaller than the white rhino but has a larger
head. People wanted to distinguish it from the white rhino so they called
it the black rhino even though it was white.

There are about 3000 black rhino's left in the world and are a very
endangered species. Their main predator is man. Poachers ply an
ellicit trade in their horns. A poacher could sell a horn for as much as $250,000.
The black rhino is very agressive and unpradictable.From a stading start it
can move 30m in two seconds. The first two images, one of which features a
rhino calf, were captured on foot by telephoto lens from 400m or roughly
13 seconds from possible death.

The third and fourth photos are of a separate sighting from a land rover
travelling at 25km/hr. The top speed of a rhino is 40 k/hr.

On the Tswalu where these photos were taken they have a very successful
black rhino breeding program. However they have lost a lot of young rhinos
at an early age. The reason was found to be that they were killed by
older bulls who saw them as possible rivals. The number of bulls have been
reduced now and this year they have not lost any young rhinos. Whilst
poaching is not a problem at the moment it is expected to
become one in the future. Twsalu are doubling their security team this
year to combat this problem.