The baby rhino was in trouble. She’d gotten herself stuck in a swamp, and she was too little and frail to pull herself out.
Makosi, the rhino’s mother, attempted to assist but just made matters worse. She churned up dirt while trying to dig her baby out, which caused the infant to sink even further.
But there was aid on the way. During a regular sweep of the Meru National Park Rhino Sanctuary, Kenya Wildlife Service rangers spotted the mother and calf. The rangers determined they needed to intervene to save the baby’s life after examining the situation. The infant would most likely die in the mud if they didn’t.
“The rangers went into the swamp region to rescue the infant after laying down their firearms, removing their boots and rolling up their pants,” Amie Alden, communication and media officer for the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (DSWT), stated. “Because they were so little, they were able to take Maarifa [the infant] to safety in their arms.”
The rangers hoped Makosi and her baby would wander away together — but unfortunately, this didn’t happen. Makosi was probably stressed and confused by the incident, and strayed far from the rescue scene, joining a male and female rhino and leaving her baby behind.
But the rangers didn’t give up — they hid in the bush, hoping this would encourage Makosi to come back. Meanwhile, the baby rhino, now named Maarifa, just wanted to play.
“She was a tiny little thing who the rangers described as ‘jovial’ from the outset,” DSWT wrote in a blog post.
“The moment she was free, despite still being caked in mud, she huffed and puffed and began spinning in circles playfully following the men and trotting behind them. This now presented a problem for her rescuers, as they tried to hide so that the mother would come back to her calf.”
The rangers spent hours trying to reunite Makosi and Maarifa — not only on the day of the rescue but the next day, too. The newborn cried out for her mom, but Makosi wandered farther and farther away and never came back.
“Scent is one of a rhino’s major senses, and the newborn would not have smelt the same after being handled by people,” Alden said. “This might have made Mum struggle to recognize Maarifa as her calf.”
“Additionally, Makosi was probably pretty upset, having discovered her calf locked and then furiously tried to release it — thus a combination of an odd fragrance and stress might have been the reasons they didn’t rejoin.” But there’s no way of knowing for sure.”
Maarifa was transferred to DSWT’s elephant orphanage in Nairobi National Park, where she was given a cozy bed and milk to drink, as she had no chance of living on her own.
Maarifa formed an instant relationship with the DSWT caregivers, who took on the role of mothering her.
“Maarifa has settled in nicely with her new caregivers and enjoys running about and playing chase games,” Alden added. “She is looked after by a rotating group of keepers – this is done on purpose to prevent her from growing too close to anyone person if… [they] are gone from her for an extended length of time.”
Maarifa is still just a few days old, so it’s difficult to predict how she’ll do in the next weeks and months, but the DSWT team is optimistic.
“In offering her a second chance at life, we are committed to doing all we can to see her through to adulthood … [although] raising and reintegrating orphaned rhinos is a difficult process,” Alden said. “That said, she has shown remarkable resilience, taking to her bottle, new home, and new human-family extremely well — all optimistic signs and indicating she has a strong will to live.”
The DSWT team will continue to look after Maarifa for the next eight years, although they’ll start allowing her to explore the world on her own in a few years.
“Once Maarifa reaches the age of 3 or 4, her stockade doors may be kept open at night so that she can wander out and have physical contact with the surrounding wild rhinos whenever she wants, with the ability to return ‘home’ whenever she wants,” Alden added.
“This patient and steady rehabilitation and reintegration procedure, anchored by routine and familiarity, has been successfully duplicated for other orphaned rhinos, including Solio, who is now living wild in Nairobi National Park but visits her old guardians on occasion.”
“As with each orphaned riho we rescue, our goal is to reintroduce Maarifa to the wild in a protected place when she is fully grown,” Alden continued.
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