Senior officials from Europe are meeting in the Czech Republic on plans for sending five critically endangered eastern black rhinos back to their natural habitat in Africa. 

The three female and two male rhinos from the Safari Park Dvůr Králové in the Czech Republic, Flamingo Land in Britain and Ree Park Safari in Denmark have been brought together in a Czech park. The plan is to airlift them to Rwanda next year.  

Veronica Varekova, a wildlife conservationist who proposed the reintroduction of rhinos in the wild, explained, “The Republic of Rwanda is one of the safest countries on the continent today, a country I have visited often in the last 10 years. I knew right away I would be dedicated to this project from the beginning to the end.”  

European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA) and the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) are working out final details for the transportation and safety of the rhinos. The black rhinos population declined by nearly 98 percent from 1960 to 1995 with only 2,500 surviving on the planet, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Their number increased to 5,000 after a series of conservation efforts were launched. Apart from poaching, habitat loss also led to a reduction in numbers.

The number of eastern black rhinos worldwide has dwindled to only about 900 with 90 of them in 22 European zoos.

“Large-scale cooperation between EAZA zoos has meant a healthy, sustainable population of eastern black rhino, which means we can now take this major step towards protecting the future of the species in the wild,” Mark Pilgrim, CEO of Chester Zoo, UK, said. 

Recently, translocation of rhinos came under intense controversy after the death of eight black rhinos while they were being taken from Nairobi, Kenya to a new national park in July.  From 2005 to 2007, Kenya transported 149 rhinos. 

Last year, 19 eastern black rhino were translocated to Rwanda from South Africa.  The five rhinos gathered at the Czech Republic will be kept separate from the herd of earlier translocated rhinos, a senior government official said.