Baraka, the not-so-blessed rhino

PHOTO | JOHN FOX Baraka, the first black rhino born at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in 1994.

What you need to know:

  • For two years in a row, Ol Pejeta has been singled out as a top performing wildlife conservancy
  • In both 2012 and 2013, it has been awarded a Certificate of Excellence by TripAdvisor, the world’s largest travel site

Baraka was not at all a pleasant sight. When we arrived at the viewing area of the Rhino Sanctuary in Ol Pejeta, he was lying alongside a dead tree and only a few metres from the fence.

He was one of the first black rhinos born on the open plains of the Ol Pejeta Conservancy back in 1994. Hence, his name: Baraka, which is Kiswahili for “blessing”. Perhaps, he himself wouldn’t wear that name very easily – he is blind. He lost one eye in a fight. His other eye developed a crystallised cataract that, after numerous treatments, eventually made him completely blind.

To shield Baraka from other dangers, he was put in a 100-acre enclosure. This is the enclosure once occupied by the much-loved Morani who, until his death in 2009, was the major attraction at the Information Centre that bears his name. So now Baraka has taken on the role of Morani at the centre.

There is a viewing platform from where visitors can feed Baraka three times a day. (And visitors to the Ol Pejeta Conservancy, from 9.30 am to 6, have free access to the Morani Information Centre – and to Baraka.)

It wasn’t Baraka’s blindness that put us off that afternoon we went to the centre. First, it was the wounds down his sides. It seems he has an itching condition – quite common to rhinos, so we were told – that means he keeps scratching himself against tree stumps or against the wires of the enclosure. And all along his exposed wounded side there was a black blanket of flies.

Not only that – because there were visitors, especially a group of school children on the viewing platform – one of the rangers thought he had to spur Baraka into some action.

So he enticed him to his feet by holding to his mouth a handful of grass, and led him closer to the platform.

Suddenly, this wonderful place (one that has received awards for its conservancy work) took on something of the nature of a zoo or a circus, where animals lose their dignity as well as their freedom.

And the awards? For two years in a row, Ol Pejeta has been singled out as a top performing wildlife conservancy. In both 2012 and 2013, it has been awarded a Certificate of Excellence by TripAdvisor, the world’s largest travel site.

Day trip

If you are in Laikipia, the Conservancy is well worth a day’s visit; even better, of course, you can choose to stay over at Serena’s Sweetwaters Tented Camp, where we were last week.

There are other options of lodges and camps. It takes only three hours to drive from Nairobi – via Nyeri and Naro Moru. By the way, especially for day trippers, there’s an excellent Morani restaurant and snack bar at the Information Centre.

The Conservancy, all 365 square kilometres of it, was once a cattle ranch. It still is – with the world’s largest herd of Boran cattle – judged to be the best beef producers in Africa. But now owned by the American Fauna and Flora International, the cattle thrive happily alongside the abundant wildlife – though they are herded into bomas at night to keep them safe from predators.

All the “big five” – elephants, rhinos and buffalos as well as lions and leopards, can be found at Ol Pejeta. The cattle and wildlife combination is rated to be a model of integrated ranching and conservation.

We were told that Ol Pejeta now has 97 black rhinos. And you might get a sighting of the 15 white rhinos. Four of these are northern white rhinos, which were transferred from the Dvur Kralove Zoo in the Czech Republic in 2009. It was a bid to save this species from extinction – these are four of only seven left in the world.

Typical of the Conservancy’s determination and innovation – and the generosity of donors – it is about to deploy a specialist aerial drone, the “Aerial Ranger”, to protect the rhinos. It will have the capacity to cover 75 km and can stay in the air for 90 minutes. And it will not be as controversial as the American drones operated over Afghanistan and Pakistan!

The excellent Sweetwaters Chimpanzee Sanctuary is also within the Conservancy (open from 9-10.30am and 3-4.30 pm). The chimps are from the Jane Goodall Institute in Burundi, and also confiscated pets and rescued bush-meat trade orphans from other parts of Africa. They have a haven of one square kilometre of bush, alongside Ewaso Ngiro River – and they have plenty of good climbing trees. Each day, the rangers feed them with fruit and vegetables.

Many of the 40-plus chimps suffered psychological trauma before they were rescued. When we were there last week, we noticed that one or two of them were throwing sticks at the electric fence.

But nothing was as dramatically symbolic as what the chimp called Max did when we were there a couple of years ago. He picked up a rock and hurled it straight at the tourists looking through the wires of the fence.

John Fox is Managing Director of iDC Email: [email protected]