Dispatches from the Field & Project Summaries
One Year Update
November 9, 2009
Questions & Answer:
1) How has the rhino population changed since our visit? How is the first newborn calf? Have any more been donated?
We have had two successful births during 2009. Nandi gave birth to a bull calf on 24 June 2009 and he has been named Obama. Bella gave birth to a bull calf on 7 October 2009 and he has been named Augustu. Kori is currently pregnant and is due to deliver either in December 2009 or January 2010.
The rhino due to arrive from South Africa has been postponed for a couple of months. The capture should take place in February 2010 and after a six week stint in a boma they will be flown to Uganda. We have decided to receive six rhino at a time as this will be more easily handled by the current staff we have. We do not have funding to employ new staff so we have to work with what we have got.
After having Rhino specialists visit the sanctuary during November, it was decided that we would put the Eastern Black rhino project on hold for a while as to have a sustainable breeding herd, we would need at least 20 Black rhino. This is going to have to take a lot more funding and planning.
2) Have you found more financial contributors (besides Disney)?
We got funding during 2009 from Ausburg Zoo, FUT (Foerderkreis fur Uganda’s Tierwelt), Brevard Zoo and some emergency funding from UWA (Uganda Wildlife Authority). This was still not nearly the amount we needed. We have been working on an overdraft facility for most of the year. No funding was received from Disney. At this stage, we have had no definite commitment for funding for 2010.
3) What other wildlife populations have changed/been introduced?
No new animals received yet. At this stage we are concentrating on getting the rhino population to a good breeding herd size. New animals is still on the Agenda but I cannot say when this is going to happen.
4) Has there been an increase in job opportunities for locals at Ziwa?
Our staff has grown to 72 staff members, this includes the hospitality staff. All staff members are recruited from the local community.
5) Have you enacted your plans to draw funding from ecotourism (you mentioned constructing a restuarant, bar, and swimming pool in the video)?
Restaurant, bar and accommodation are doing well. The income from this goes to the owner of the land who gave us the lease for the property in kind. We are in the final planning stages of a 4 star tented lodge on the sanctuary as well. This will be a time share lodge and shares will be sold to anyone who is interested including corporate companies and tour companies. This lodge will not only cater for tourists but for company weekend getaways, team building weekends, weddings and conferences. The lodge will have luxury tents, Jacuzzi and swimming pool and will be situated on the bank of the dam which is the animals, including rhino drinking and wallowing place. 15% of all the income of the lodge will come to Rhino Fund Uganda.
6) Please include any other information you would like audiences (and GLP) to know. Thanks for your time and we appreciate your help in providing these important updates for our website to help us better support Ziwa. Let me know if you have any questions.
Our web page is updated and your link is on as well. Projects that we would like to do in 2010 include a primary school, medical clinic, soprts coaching etc. We do however first need to get the funding for this. Our visitor figures have trebled during 2009 which has helped a lot with the income. Rangers received new uniforms and bicycles during 2009. This has made a big difference to their morale. New staff accommodation was built and new pit toilets were built. We are however in desperate need of three boreholes for drinking water for the staff. At this stage the staff is taking water from our dams to drink and cook with.
For the general public – anybody who works for large corporate firms who are looking to get involved with a project as long term as funders – Please Please Please speak to your Directors. We are so desperately in need of committed funders. Our budget for 2010 is $310 000 and our income estimated at $ 120 000. There is a HUGE shortfall and it seems all the original funders have moved on to other projects.
Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary – Uganda (Rhino Fund Uganda): Becoming okay with the AK…47, that is
March 7, 2008
We headed north on the Kampala/Gulu road toward the Ziwa Ranch Rhino Sanctuary.
The day was moving to dusk and as we drove toward park headquarters. The day patrol rangers bike toward us as they close their shifts. Charged with protecting the rhinos from poachers, rangers must have equal footing in confrontations – explaining the AK-47s slung over their shoulders as they slowly pedaled toward the main gate – they smile and wave as we motor past.
Head ranger Godfried gave us a tour of the headquarters and a quick history of the property. Formerly a cattle ranch, a local rancher donated 35 square kilometers to the Rhino Fund Uganda to establish the sanctuary. A sizeable gift from the European Union allowed them to install a solar-powered electric fence around the perimeter of the site and 4 white rhinos from Kenya were then brought to the property. More recently, Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Florida donated an additional pair of white rhinos.
That evening, we met Rhino Fund Uganda executive director Heidi Cragg – a plucky, sun burnished South African woman with a passion for wildlife conservation.
Her projects include a rhinoceros breeding project (their first calf is due in weeks), community education + outreach programs along with sourcing the local community for rangers and sanctuary support staff.
In Africa, rhinos are hunted by poachers for the exceptional price they can get for their horns, valued for their perceived medicinal power. Remarkably, rhino horn is actually made of hair attached to the skin of the rhino, not the bone, so it can be harvested without killing the rhino. Bullets, however, are cheaper than rhinoceros tranquilizers. Rhino advocates had taken to the practice of removing the horn before it was discovered that poachers would kill hornless rhinos to spite conservationists. The message is simple – you deprive me of my bounty, I’ll kill the animal anyway. Bush meat poachers ply the edges of the electric fence, running snares underneath onto the sanctuary property to capture bushbuck, diker and wild pig. Farmers quietly maneuver their cattle onto the property’s edge to graze illegally – rangers “arrest” cows on a regular basis and she’s discovered that recent interloping herds have been the property of local public officials making enforcement a frustrating affair, to say the least.
Supported solely by donation, the Rhino Fund’s budget is unpredictable at best. A recent spate of dried up coffers forced Heidi to give up 24 hour ranger patrols, leaving the rhinos unprotected from poachers during the evenings, incurring a series of dread-filled, sleepless nights before the Uganda Wildlife Authority donated 4 rangers so Rhino Fund could resume 24 hour patrols.
Heidi shared her plans to make the sanctuary less reliant on donor funding through ecotourism, attracting more visitors by expanding and improving guest facilities with the construction of a restaurant, bar and swimming pool along with more overnight accommodations. She’s working to increase her white rhino count, introducing black rhinos along with broad grazing, non-cattle mammals, such as zebra, to manage grassland overgrowth and offer more variety in wildlife viewing.
Room and board are available to visitors and volunteers and the predominantly solar powered facilities offered presently are clean and simple – with the menagerie of wildlife, visitors spend of their waking hours viewing rhinos, hippos, bushbuck, vervit monkeys and marveling at the prolific birdlife on the property.
A tireless champion of the sanctuary, natural resource and wildlife conservation, Heidi sees daily challenges, both planned + unexpected (flat tires and bush fires, anyone?), as a shot of adrenaline, the stuff that makes life interesting, announcing, unprompted, “I just love it here”.