Flying Rhino's on Video

Yesterday I posted on South Africa's flying black rhino relocation program.

Today we have video from the relocation program and news that the western black rhino (a subspecies of the black rhino that once lived in west Africa) has been declared extinct (though that may change as animals were known to be in the wild only 15 years ago). 

From the video description of last week's South African black rhino move:

A relatively new capture technique was used to airlift some of the rhinos out of difficult or inaccessible areas by helicopter. This entails suspending the sleeping rhino by the ankles for a short trip through the air to awaiting vehicles. "Previously rhinos were either transported by lorry over very difficult tracks, or airlifted in a net. This new procedure is gentler on the darted rhino because it shortens the time it has to be kept asleep with drugs, the respiration is not as compromised as it can be in a net and it avoids the need for travel in a crate over terrible tracks," explains Dr Flamand. "Another advantage is that rhinos can be more easily removed from dangerous situations, for example if they have fallen asleep in a donga or other difficult terrain after being darted. The helicopter translocations usually take less than ten minutes, and the animals suffer no ill effect. All of the veterinarians working on the translocation agreed that this was now the method of choice for the well-being of the animals."

.