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Clover milk for baby rhinos
Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force (ZCTF)
February 08, 2008

Thanks to Clover Milk (RSA) who donated 150kg of skimmed milk powder, there are 3 very happy young rhinos in Zimbabwe this week. Our heartfelt appreciation to Clover for this most welcome donation. Thanks also to Linda Honegger who very kindly collected the milk from Clover, paid the documentation fees and organized for the milk to be flown to Bulawayo, and to Dave Gill for collecting it from the airport and arranging customs clearance etc. I drove to Bulawayo to collect the milk and the ZCTF paid the duty of just under ZWD300 million.

We would also like to thank the Howick Agricultural Co-op and Jan Phelan and family for their donation of approximately 100 teats for Tatenda and Sandy Wilde for her donation of glucose.

We took 3 of the 6 bags of milk and the glucose to Imire on Sunday. Tatenda is growing very nicely thanks to the people who have assisted with his food.

Tatenda used to have his mud bath in a puddle in the Travers' back yard but he has grown too big for the puddle so he is now escorted into the game park where he can have a real mud bath which he enjoys immensely. As soon as he gets close enough to smell the mud, he starts galloping towards it and jumps in with a huge belly flop.

On Wednesday, we drove to Buffalo Range to give the other 3 bags of milk powder and 10 teats to Janie Style for her two young rhinos, Carla and Lisa Marie. These two rhinos are easily twice the size of Tatenda.

Janie has done an amazing job rescuing 2 orphaned rhinos from the jaws of death. Their mothers were shot by poachers last year. Lisa Marie was caught in a snare and Carla was shot through her shoulder and chopped in the face with a panga. It was thought that their chances of survival were very slim but Janie persevered and they pulled through. Lisa Marie almost lost her leg due to the snare wound and although it has now healed quite well, she can't stand on it for longer than about 10 or 15 minutes - then she has to lie down to keep her weight off it for a while. Both rhinos love having their stomachs rubbed.

Lisa Marie and Carla are very attached to each other and can't bear to be separated for any length of time. Both rhinos, like Tatenda were very interested in their milk from Clover. They did a full inspection of the bags and could obviously smell what was inside because they tried to rip the bags open and we had to remove the bags before they succeeded.

We are extremely grateful to Janie for all her hard work in trying to preserve this very special endangered species and also to the Save Foundation of Australia who donated milk and food last year.

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