{"id":10588,"date":"2024-04-24T10:38:17","date_gmt":"2024-04-24T15:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/safariwest.com\/?p=10588"},"modified":"2024-04-24T10:38:17","modified_gmt":"2024-04-24T15:38:17","slug":"lessons-from-rhino-conservation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/safariwest.com\/2024\/04\/lessons-from-rhino-conservation\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons from Rhino Conservation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As we celebrate the first year of Otto\u2019s life, I can\u2019t help but think about young rhinos across the world. It\u2019s no secret that rhinos are struggling in the wild\u2014rhino conservation is one of the most publicized fights to save wildlife in the world. And with all of this publicity, I\u2019ve really struggled with what to write about in this article. Want to know the intricate details of how the International Rhino Foundation (IRF) is working to protect rhino populations worldwide? Rhinos.org has you more than covered. Want to know the most up to date numbers on wild rhino populations? Check out the IUCN Red List pages on each rhino species, or the IRF\u2019s 2023 State of the Rhino report. What could I possibly add to the discourse? How can I write about a painful subject in a way that is honest enough that people don\u2019t just think everything is fine, but hopeful enough that people don\u2019t leave feeling depressed and unwilling to interact with this topic in the future? After a bit of consternation, I ended up looking back at all of the conversations I\u2019ve had with guests and staff at Safari West about rhino conservation over the last 12 years. In all of these conversations, what have I learned? What do I wish people knew the most? In short, I can just use rhinos themselves as an analogy\u2014because of a mistranslation, the two African rhino species are black rhinos and white rhinos, but the actual color of both species is gray. Similarly, on the surface rhino conservation can seem black and white\u2014good guys and bad guys, good decisions and bad decisions, but in reality the world is shades of gray.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Almost every conversation I start about rhino conservation includes somebody making a sweeping statement damning all poachers, wondering how anybody could do such a horrible thing. It\u2019s a fair first assessment\u2014killing a rhino for its horn seems like a senseless act of violence. But we live in a place of extreme privilege. There are people living in poverty where wild rhinos roam, who have exhausted other options to provide for themselves and their families and turn to poaching a part of an animal that is worth more than its weight in gold. There are certainly poachers who are part of multinational crime organizations coming into Africa in helicopters with high caliber rifles that are less deserving of our empathy. But once conservationists understood that a lot of poaching was a result of desperation, they started hiring former poachers who used their tracking knowledge to become extremely effective anti-poaching rangers. Recognizing the shades of gray allowed for both people and rhinos to be helped more effectively.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As we celebrate the first year of Otto\u2019s life, I can\u2019t help but think about young rhinos across the world. It\u2019s no secret that rhinos are struggling in the wild\u2014rhino&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":9872,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,68],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-10588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conservation","category-goings-on"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.3 (Yoast SEO v26.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Lessons from Rhino Conservation - Safari West<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/safariwest.com\/2024\/04\/lessons-from-rhino-conservation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lessons from Rhino Conservation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As we celebrate the first year of Otto\u2019s life, I can\u2019t help but think about young rhinos across the world. It\u2019s no secret that rhinos are struggling in the wild\u2014rhino...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/safariwest.com\/2024\/04\/lessons-from-rhino-conservation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Safari West\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-04-24T15:38:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/safariwest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Burgess_001-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1473\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark Pressler\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mark Pressler\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/safariwest.com\/2024\/04\/lessons-from-rhino-conservation\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/safariwest.com\/2024\/04\/lessons-from-rhino-conservation\/\",\"name\":\"Lessons from Rhino Conservation - Safari West\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/safariwest.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/safariwest.com\/2024\/04\/lessons-from-rhino-conservation\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/safariwest.com\/2024\/04\/lessons-from-rhino-conservation\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/safariwest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Burgess_001-scaled.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-04-24T15:38:17+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/safariwest.com\/#\/schema\/person\/12b2e81d692cb657a442c3a4b3d467ca\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/safariwest.com\/2024\/04\/lessons-from-rhino-conservation\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/safariwest.com\/2024\/04\/lessons-from-rhino-conservation\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/safariwest.com\/2024\/04\/lessons-from-rhino-conservation\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/safariwest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Burgess_001-scaled.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/safariwest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Burgess_001-scaled.jpg\",\"width\":2560,\"height\":1473,\"caption\":\"Rhinos\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/safariwest.com\/2024\/04\/lessons-from-rhino-conservation\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/safariwest.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Lessons from Rhino Conservation\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/safariwest.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/safariwest.com\/\",\"name\":\"Safari West\",\"description\":\"The Sonoma Serengeti\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/safariwest.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/safariwest.com\/#\/schema\/person\/12b2e81d692cb657a442c3a4b3d467ca\",\"name\":\"Mark Pressler\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/safariwest.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d74a2194200ac0125665dfacb2f815ee30d030f247bf95873db25436833d55ec?s=96&d=retro&r=x\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d74a2194200ac0125665dfacb2f815ee30d030f247bf95873db25436833d55ec?s=96&d=retro&r=x\",\"caption\":\"Mark Pressler\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/safariwest.com\/author\/mpressler\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Lessons from Rhino Conservation - Safari West","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/safariwest.com\/2024\/04\/lessons-from-rhino-conservation\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Lessons from Rhino Conservation","og_description":"As we celebrate the first year of Otto\u2019s life, I can\u2019t help but think about young rhinos across the world. 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