A one-year-old rhino calf whose mother and sister were killed by poachers on Friday has been relocated to the Rhino and Lion Nature Reserve in Gauteng.

The calf wandered near the carcasses for almost three days before being discovered by rangers in the Botsalano Game Reserve near the Botswana border. The young rhino was severely dehydrated and blind in one eye.

Both the rhinos were killed for their horns.

The rangers checked the database and realised there was another calf who weighed around 400 kilogrammes.

Head of the North West Counter-Poaching Unit, Rusty Hustler, said they finally found the calf in a terrible condition on Monday.

“He’s been without his mother for the best part of three days,” said Hustler. “If we hadn’t found him by yesterday, he would have been dead.

A decision was then taken to place the calf on a drip and drive him more than 300 kilometres to the park west of Johannesburg.

He arrived there on Monday night and was doing well on Tuesday.

http://www.eyewitnessnews.co.za