For the first time in more than 40 years, rhinos are back in Uganda’s Kidepo Valley National Park after poachers there slaughtered them all \u200bfor their prized horns and meat.<\/p>\n
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Two southern white rhinos rumbled out \u200cof transport crates on Tuesday after a long journey from a private ranch, becoming the first of eight animals set to repopulate the park where the last rhino was killed in \u200b1983.
\nBack then, poachers exploiting political instability in Uganda killed all the \u200brhinos roaming Kidepo and the country’s other national parks, once home \u2060to around 700 of the giant mammals.<\/p>\n
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Their disappearance marked the species’ total extinction \u200bin the wild in Uganda. Their reintroduction is now being overseen partly by the \u200bstate-run Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA).<\/p>\n
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“This moment marks the beginning of a new rhino story for Kidepo Valley National Park,” James Musinguzi, Executive Director UWA, said at a ceremony to mark the occasion.<\/p>\n
“Translocation \u200bof these rhinos is the first step in restoring a species that once \u200bformed part of the park’s natural heritage,” he added.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The two rhinos were translocated to Kidepo, \u200ca vast \u2060expanse of savannah in remote northeastern Uganda, from the privately owned Ziwa Rhino and Wildlife Ranch in Nakasongola, about 100 km (62 miles) north of the capital Kampala.<\/p>\n
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The ranch has been breeding rhinos since 2005, when it imported four southern white \u200brhinos from a Kenyan \u200bgame reserve.<\/p>\n
Poaching remains \u2060a major problem in Uganda’s protected wildlife areas and authorities regularly detain and prosecute suspects caught with ivory, pangolins and \u200bother endangered species, according to conservationists.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Despite international campaigns to crack \u200bdown on \u2060poachers and smugglers, demand for rhino horns has remained strong, driven by their use in traditional medicine and their role as status symbols in many Asian countries.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Kidepo is \u2060particularly \u200bvulnerable because it lies in an area where \u200barmed cattle rustlers carry out frequent cross-border raids. The park also borders South Sudan, where the government \u200bis battling insurgents.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14097,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-29139","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"For the first time in more than 40 years, rhinos are back in Uganda's Kidepo Valley National Park","published_date":"2026-03-18 16:40:37","news_description":"For the first time in more than 40 years, rhinos are back in Uganda's Kidepo Valley National Park","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/29139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/29139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29140,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/29139\/revisions\/29140"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=29139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}