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| Location: |
Africa - Western Africa - Central African Republic |
| Subject: |
Distribution - Records |
| Species: |
White Rhino |
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But old stories die hard, and when I came to the Central African Republic in l974 it was still thought that the white rhino might exist the Zemongo Faunal Reserve. Jan Rugsten claims to have made two sightings of white rhino, possibly both of the same animal on the upper Ouarra River (Figure 2) in 1974 at about latitude 06.10, longitude 26' 00' E (Rugsten, pers. comm.), but all other reports of rhino in this area have been of the black rhino. In view of the uncertainty, why should it be supposed that the animal might stil lexist in the Zemongo Reserve? The basic reason is that the wildlife resources of this 10.100 km? area (first gazetted as a hunting reserve in 1925 and upgraded to a faunal reserve in 1940) have never been surveyed. The reserve remains today the least-known part of the Central African Republic; part of a vast, uninhabited wilderness extending along almost the entire border with the Sudan. In the latter part of the 19th century parts of this area were probably well-inhabited, until the dervishes from the Sudan descended the Vovodo River about 1883 to pillage the country. Further pillaging probably took place about 1902 under the slave-raiding armies of Senoussi, who had his headquarters at Nd?l? (where one of his descendants occupied the position of sultan until 1985). In 1909-10, sleeping-sickness delivered the final, devastating blow, from which the area has never recovered.
The first European to visit the region appears to have been an Englishman, Frank Lupton (governor of the Bahr el Chazal Province of the Sudan) in about 1882. But he only crossed the southwest extremity (Figure 2) as did the explorer Junker, in 1883. In 1909-10, a French military detachment explored part of the area. From the former village of Zemongo, one of the team, M. Ebener, crossed the Vovodo River which forms the western boundary of the present reserve, and followed the east bank from Mount Meringuet to the village of Ano (= Ango?); he then re-crossed the Vovodo and continued south. Ebener, in Martin (1913), records that there was a route from Rafai, along the Vovodo to Mount Meringuet, where it branched to Raga and Dem Zubeir. This was used mostly by Creek and Syrian ivory traders. The only reference to rhino in this account concerns their presence on the banks of the Boulou River, about 120 km to the northwest of Zemongo (Martin, 1913).
The next visit seems to have been thatof the Anglo-French boundary survey at the beginning of 1922, which traced the northeast boundary. Grassard (1925), the French mission leader, reports that some rhino tracks were shown to the team, but they were rare. He does not say where this was along the border with Sudan, but mentions that the Karas knew certain points between Birao and Nd?l? where they were sure to find rhino. This is the area where the black rhino has been known to exist in recent times. Comyn (1911) reported the white rhino as `pretty numerous' in the Sudan, northeast of Raga and about 210 km from the Zemongo Reserve. Christie (1924) said that white rhino were numerous in 1916 on the Congo side of the Mbomou River, about 220 km south of the Zemongo Reserve.
Thus it was reasonable to suppose that, if the white rhino had survived, then it might be in the vast, unknown Zemongo wilderness, which no European has yet traversed. One person is known to have ventured 30 km inside the reserve along the Bita River, and Rugsten (pers. comm.) went about a third of the way up this river in the 1960's, hunting crocodiles; but these limited expeditions did not yield information on white rhino.
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The rhinos of the Central African Republic
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