Two batches of 35 rhinos moved by truck and airliner as part of major rewilding effort involving South Africa and Rwanda.
Seventy southern white rhinos have completed a journey of more than 3,400 kilometres (at least 2,112 miles) by truck and Boeing 747 from South Africa to Rwanda in what has been described as the largest translocation of its kind.
Part of a rewilding initiative, the rhinos were transported in two groups of 35 – first by airliner then by road – from South Africa’s Munywana Conservancy to the Akagera National Park in Rwanda, central Africa’s largest protected wetland, the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) said on Tuesday.
“The final phase of the 3,400km journey involved the rhino being transported by truck in individual steel crates from Munywana to King Shaka International Airport in Durban,” the RDB said.
“They were then carefully loaded by cranes into a Boeing 747, flown to Kigali International Airport, and finally transported to Akagera National Park by road,” it said.
