WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS GRAPHIC CONTENT.
A poached rhino saved in an amazing rescue following the life-threatening attack has sired a calf.
Seha came across a group of poachers who brutally attacked him, leaving the severely wounded rhino without his horn and fighting for his life.
Fortunately, the organization—founded by Dr. Johan Marais—rescued Seha and brought him back to a secure facility where they treated him. And now, five years after the attack, Seha has sired a calf called Daniel.
Dorota Ladosz, a veterinary assistant at the organization, said that Seha—which is short for Sehawukele, meaning “have mercy on us” in the Zulu language of Southern Africa—began his long journey of treatments and recovery at the organization after poachers attacked him.
“Seha’s life started in the way of most baby rhinos. He was born onto a large private game reserve in the North-West province of South Africa,” Dorota said.
“As a young bull rhino, he was ready to leave his mother and find a place of his own. He established a territory and patrolled it.”
Then in October 2016, he came across a challenge “he had not faced before.”
Dorota said: “A group of poachers armed with weapons that very few rhinos have faced and survived.
“They hacked into his head, intent on getting every last piece of horn, so valuable that on the black market it’s called grey gold.
“The poachers ripped the horns out of his head, gouging out his facial bones and exposing his sinuses. Stripped of his identity and dignity, Seha was left lying in a pool of his own blood.
“He was taken to a secure facility where Dr. Marais began his treatments. And Dr. Marais never gives up.”
Dorota said that Daniel the baby rhino was born from one of the females that Seha met after being released. The mother rhino, named Lucky, is also a “survivor of poaching.”
Saving the Survivors has partnered with Baby Rhino Rescue, an organization working to save rhinos from extinction, to raise funds to move the rhinos to a new home.
“The good news is that a well secured reserve, complete with armed guards and an anti-poaching unit, has been found,” Dorota said.
“We need your help in transporting him to his new home and in providing care for him. We have also found two female rhinos who are of prime reproductive age that we need to purchase, with your help.
“Please join Baby Rhino Rescue in supporting a true superhero.
“Seha needs and deserves to live out his life in the wild, patrolling his territory and breeding as a normal wild rhino. Let’s get Seha into the wild again.”
