Eight black rhinos died as they were being transported from Lake Nakuru and Nairobi National parks recently.They died on arrival at Tsavo East National park. According to reports by Kenya Wildlife officials, the black rhinos died due to salt poisoning considering that the waters at the coast are of high salinity.
This act of relocating live animals from one region to another is called translocation. The animals are first sedated so as to avoid commotion and woken when they reach their destination. The rhinos were being transported for breeding in order to avoid the extinction of the black rhino. Unfortunately, only three survived and this is a great loss not only to the tourism industry but also to the animal population because only hundreds of the black rhinos are remaining.
Long distance transportation of live animals is an issue that has been spoken about over and over and should be looked into with a lot of concern to avoid animal deaths every now and then; be it the domestic or wild animals. All of them play a huge role in balancing the ecosystem.
