Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
White Rhino Commandeering the Road
Black Rhino Drinking at Okaukuejo at Night Where a German Tourist was taken by a
Lioness
The area however needed is dependent very much on rainfall but in the Umfolozi -
Hhuhluwe area the carrying capacity is 0.43 black rhino per square km. For both elephants and
rhino what hinders greater growth rates is the long gestation period of 22 months for elephants,
16 months for white rhino and 15.4 months for black rhino. Buffalo can increase at up to 30%
despite an 11 month gestation because 75% of cows in a heard are pregnant at any time. Rhino
front horns grow at about 6cm/year the back horn at 3cm/year. Horns are said to be sold for
$50,000 per lb. Rhino however need fairly large areas to breed and ideally populations should
be larger than 100 on more than 400 square km, starting with 20 animals. Once they reach
some 100 in population, then animals can start being removed, but also one human monitor /
guard is needed per rhino for protecting them. One other point of interest is that white rhinos
are very territorial and “fence” themselves into areas. If this does not occur they tend to
become wanderers and when white rhino were introduced onto Chief Island in the Okavango
swamps (7-14% of tourists want to see rhino apart from the big five), despite the water
barriers (rhino can only ford 3 feet of water because they cannot pickup their heads), some had
escaped and wandered way south into the Kalahari desert.
Geology:
Parts of Southern Africa are said to be the oldest in the world. After the Big Bang, about
13.7 billion years ago, the earth started coalescing together around the sun about 4.7 billion
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