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Taylor, M., 1998. Research into the possible reasons for a lack of ovarian cycling in an 18 year old female white rhino (Ceratotherium simum simum)(work in progress). EEP Research Group Newsletter 5: 5-6

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Location: Africa - Southern Africa - Zimbabwe
Subject: Translocation - Methods
Species: White Rhino


Original text on this topic:
Ceratotherium simum transferred to Matusadona, Zimbabwe, all died. In any future such exercises, much more attention should be paid to monitoring the progress of translocated animals than was the case in the Matusadona exercise, especially when being moved into tsetse fly infested areas. Previous releases of white rhino have all been into tsetse free areas. The following points especially need to be taken into consideration.
(i) A longer holding period is required prior to release. There are numerous records of the disappearance and subsequent death of a number of wild animals following immediate release into new areas. More importantly in the case of white rhino, monitoring any tsetse fly/trypanosomiasis challenge would necessitate keeping animals confined for an extended period.
(ii) Holding pens should be sited in an area where tsetse fly are present, but where the challenge is low, at least initially. In the Matusadona exercise, the pens were situated on open lakeshore grassland where tsetse fly were unlikely. The animals would have encountered tsetse fly only once released, when they moved into the adjacent woodlands.
(iii) Blood-smears should be taken as frequently as is practicable which would require a certain level of pen training. Otherwise the rhino would have to be subjected to further chemical or physical restraint before treatment can be effected if illness occurs.
(iv) Chemotherapy with Berenil should be instituted once trypanisomes are found in any quantity and the animal shows clinic symptoms of disease.
(v) An initial single prophylactic treatment with Samorin just prior to translocation may also be of value. It could then be establishe whether the drug both protects the rhino and allows it to develop th necessary tolerance to the disease. Confinement and observation would then have to be at least 6 months.
(vi) Some form of marking or tagging animals is necessary so that the rhino can be monitored subsequent to their release and more readily located if need be.
(vii) Finally, the ecological suitability of an area to new introduction should be examined critically. In the case of white rhino introduction into the Zambezi Valley, there is perhaps a need to re-examine very carefully the historical record as to the presence or absence of whit rhino in the area. The species may well have been an infrequent visitor on the very edge of its range.

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