White Rhinoes And Wild Dogs

They are the second largest mammal. They live in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Kenya. Where there is grassy savannah and woodlands. There are two types of rhinos that live in these places Southern Rhinos and Northern Rhinos. Northern adult rhinos grow to 185metres and 3.6 tonnes. Females are partially smaller but can still grow to 1.7 tonnes. White rhinos have a large skull, no hair and two horns. The front horn can grow up to 70cm, but it can reach up to 150cm.  Rhinos have tough skins. They can live up to 40 years.

They live in grassy savannah, and woodlands. Rhinos avoid the heat during the day, rest in the shade and are active in the afternoon and evening.  They like to bath in shallow mud pools.  They normally go around in herds that have around fourteen rhinos, in each. The breeding females cannot leave the group. The males are very competitive over them and get seriously hurt when fighting over them.

There are around 20 000 southern rhinos living in the wild, but only three northern rhinos, that are in captivity. Two are female and one is male. Sadly last year the last male northern rhino died.  The last northern rhino died on 20/03/17 age 45 years. This was due to illness from an infection from his back legs and other things also have him.

There have been talks about using IVF to impregnate the female rhino’s, but it will be challenging,  

 What there used for?

Many countries believe that rhino’s horns are an important ingredient for many of their medicine. Poaches trade the horns, these are used to cure illnesses, hangovers and fever. There is also a symbol of wealth, in connection to rhino’s horns. This mainly started because of a myth that horns can cure cancer; this then increased the number of people who were poaching for the animal, as the prices of the rhino's horn went up.

In 2012 668 rhinos were poached in South Africa. In January 2013 that increased by 946. This is nearly 2 per day.

Some action that took place to protect the rhinos are through the WWF, by providing new protection areas and improving management of each areas, having security monitoring certain areas  and tourism experiences, therefore they can have more experiences of the animal, and make money to help them to keep protecting them.

Wild dogs

Also Kown as Cape Hunting Dogs 

Live in open plains, woodlands of Saharan Africa.

They have long legs, four toes, unlike other dogs which have five. Mottled coat with red, black, white and yellow patches, which are round.  They also have big rounded ears.

The wild dogs live in large groups of 6 to 20 and are pack animals.  They are also social animals, who interact with each other, by touching, chattering to each other and showing different actions. They share food with the whole pack and assist with the ill and weak members.  There have high stamina, and they are known as the killing dogs, because when they kill their prey they start to eat the prey before it is dead.

Endangered due to the shrinking of habitat. They easily catch diseases from domestic animals. Hunted and killed by locals and farmers, as there may try and eat the farmer's food.

Only four types remaining in the population. They can roam 250 square kilometres and can travel 50 km in a single day.