Daily Archives: September 29, 2019

White Rhinoceros, Uganda

I am back from 14 days in Uganda with Epic Uganda Vacations. 5 of us did a tour of the major National Parks and Refuges. You will be seeing a lot more and I will have much to say about the adventure…with was excellent. This shot is from our trip from Entebbe to Murchison Falls National Park. We stopped for lunch at the Ziwa Rhino Santuary. Rhinos were hunted to extinction in the 1970s in Uganda for their horns, but efforts are underway to reestablish them in Ugandan Parks. The Ziwa Sancturay is a breeding project. They imported 3 White Rhinos from Kenya and 2 from a zoo in Florida. They now have 29 Rhinos on the refuge. When they reach 40 they will begin to introduce them into one of the National Parks, and continue until they are represented where ever they historically roamed. At Ziwa we had a unique opportunity to walk out and see Rhinos on foot, at close distances. These Rhino Treks help support the conservation work of the Sanctuary. While most tourists at Ziwa typically see 2 Rhinos resting in the shade of trees, we saw 6, and several up and moving. This is a mother and her calf moving from one shade tree to another. This is about the moment the ranger took my arm to remind me to move back 🙂 The “white” in White Rhino is not a color but a corruption of the Afrikaner word for “wide” and refers to the width of the mouth. The White Rino is a grazer, eating low grasses, while the ”Black” (beaked) Rhino is a forager, eating leaves from bushes and trees, and has a much narrower mouth. I am not aware of any other facility that provides this kind of experience…and it is an experience…seeing wild Rhinos up close on foot. It is just one of many unique aspects of a Ugandan Safari.