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Rookmaaker, L.C., 2002. Personal Communication
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Location: Africa - Eastern Africa - Sudan
Subject: Distribution - Status
Species: White Rhino


Original text on this topic:
Three new rhino calves have been found at Garamba. All are the first calves born to known young females (Etumba, Oeuf de Pacque and Jengatu). When found, in February, by Fraser Smith (Chief Technical Advisor) and three park guards, the calves ranged in age from one month to about 6 months old. One is definitely male and one was tentatively identified as female. Unlike the effects of the first Liberation War, where anti-poaching was stopped for several months in 1997 and half the elephants, two-thirds of the buffaloes and three quarters of the hippos were poached, Garamba seems to have fared reasonably well in the second war, which began in August 1998. Guards were not disarmed and have continued anti-poaching patrols and maintaining law enforcement monitoring records, despite the enforced absence of Conservateurs and Technical Advisors. Ways have been found to provide them regularly with financial support from IRF and rations and medicines from WWF, and the local RCD and other authorities in the area have been supportive of the conservation activities. Most of the Conservateurs are now back in the field.
The effectiveness of anti-poaching has inevitably been limited by the lack of vehicles, the radio network and aerial support, but coupled with other factors it has been successful. Poaching rose in the early part of the second war, but measured in terms of armed contacts per 100 patrol days per month from the last quarter of 1998, through 1999 to January 2000, average monthly contacts for each quarter have fallen from 10.5, through 9, 4, 3.1, 2.6 to 0. No gunshots at all have been heard on any recent patrols. In August 1999, the leaders of the SPLA forces in adjacent Sudan began operations with local authorities to recover weapons in the surrounding areas, particularly the Sudanese refugee camps. December 1999 and planned again, these operations were collaborative with staff from the park, led by the Conservateur Principal Mbayma. This would seem to have made an important contribution to reducing poaching in the park.
Technical personnel from Garamba, including the senior guards running the field law enforcement effort at the time, took part in the meeting of World Heritage Sites of the DRC in Naivasha in April 1999. Since then they have played a major role in developing the collaborative UN Foundation/ World Heritage /DRC project that aims to help staff of the five World Heritage Sites of the DRC through the current crisis period and build their capacity for the future. We hope that it will give Garamba and the other four sites a better chance of survival and a more powerful framework in which ICCN and their partner organisations can continue to work for their conservation. We hope to have a more accurate picture of the status of the wildlife if clearance is obtained to do an intensive survey of the rhinos and a systematic sample count of the whole park in March and April, but indications so far are reasonable. From a minimum of 26 rhinos present in June 1998, one is known to have been killed in December and three are known to have been born. No freshly dead elephants have been reported lately.

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