In our ongoing commitment to keep you, our donors, fully apprised of where your funds are going, this is what you made possible in the last two months: 

• A donation was made to Rhino Pride Foundation for security, paying for the salary of two guards.

• A donation went to SA’s biggest private Game Reserve to pay for ten license plate recognition cameras. These cameras are a security game changer for the reserve.

As poaching amps up in that area of the country, state of the art poaching devices are needed. The cameras add to the anti-poaching units that BRR also funds. 

The wildlife areas and farms in the area have been hit by poaching, with one farm sustaining the slaughter of 37 rhinos! It is our intention to keep the glorious, wild rhinos on the reserve safe. 

From M.D Johan Odendaal’s

“We would like to sincerely thank all donors for the gracious donation received for the installation of License Plate Recognition cameras on our reserve. These cameras will greatly assist us in the fight against rhino poachers and the syndicates managing and transporting them.

“In addition to directly keeping the reserve and its rhinos safe, the LPR cameras will further aid a number of other rhino reserves whom we are now operating with collectively in intelligence gathering and communication, by linking the cameras to their databases and for information to be shared. 

“The fight against poachers needs to be fought not only by boots on the ground, but needs to be strengthened by the use of technology providing crucial intelligence and early warning to rhino strongholds.”

“We are enormously grateful for this contribution. It will greatly enhance our capabilities in fighting the rhino poaching scourge.”

The Daily Maverick asked Helena and Don to do a part two, which will be published in the next few weeks. This article will focus on an unprecedented Zoom discussion involving 16 rhino advocates who come from different perspectives and bring divergent imperatives. 

These former antagonists sought common ground, bringing a spirit of collaboration to the table, a desire to find solutions to a daunting problem.

We will feature the outcome of that meeting in the next BRR newsletter. 

• Kicking off our partnership with Saving the Survivors, Baby Rhino Rescue will be helping Seha, the rhino who is now sadly the new face of poaching. 

Seha was brutally poached on a private farm in South Africa in 2014. Horrific pictures detail the extent of his injuries, with half of his face hacked off and nasal cavities exposed. 

Left to die, the rhino was spotted by police. The owners stated he should be shot, but the police contacted Saving the Survivors and Seha was transferred into Dr. Marais’ excellent hands.

Now 7 years old and 30 operations later, this rhino is still alive! He has endured so much and now lives in a holding paddock. Seha needs to be released into a wild environment where he can again be a rhino and sire calves!