update (18 November 2020): According to the Centre for African Journalists (CAJ) News Africa, the Gonarezhou Conservation Trust (GTC) has graduated 39 game rangers at Chipinda Pools airstrip in Zimbabwe ahead of the re-introduction of rhinoceros in Gonarezhou National Park. The animals are to be moved to the park before the end of 2020.
update (21 July 2020): According to a "Park Update 13 July 2020" by Gonarezhou National Park on Facebook, work is currently underway to fence the 130 000 acres Intensive Protection Zone (IPZ) in which the black rhinos will be reintroduced to roam wild. So far 12 km of the fence line has been erected. The IPZ is located inside Gonarezhou National Park. We'll keep you posted!
The Gonarezhou National Park in Zimbabwe is set to reintroduce over 20 black rhinos into its 500 000 hectares of remote and rugged bush country in 2020. The rhino population in what is now the country's second largest National Park got wiped out two times. The original population of black rhinos in the area was killed sometime between the 1930s and 1940s. Between 1969 and 1977 - Gonarezhou National Park was declared a National Park in 1975 - a total of 77 black rhinos got reintroduced into the area. The population grew to 140 animals before the civil war in neighbouring Mozambique resulted in the closure of Gonarezhou National Park to the public. During the closure, poachers wiped out the entire rhino population in Gonarezhou National Park for the second time. The last rhino in Gonarezhou National Park was killed in 1994.
Gonarezhou National Park is located in south-eastern Zimbabwe and is managed by the Gonarezhou Conservation Trust, an innovative new model for protected area management drawn up between the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZPWMA), and the Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS).
