Baby Rhino Frolicking Like Puppy Is Moment of Pure Joy Everyone Needs

Care for Wild Sanctuary is the world’s largest rhinoceros sanctuary, caring for rescued, injured, and orphaned rhinos who have been the victims of illegal poaching. The facility covers many thousands of acres in South Africa, and is dedicated to raising orphaned rhinos who may, hopefully one day be rereleased into the wild. The future looks difficult for rhinoceroses like the baby in this video, as they are still regularly hunted and poached based on faulty beliefs about their horns. They are also, like every other wild species on Earth, experiencing enormous amounts of habitat destruction.

But all of that is unknown to the adorable baby in this video.

Here we meet RiRi, a sweet baby black rhino calf, who loves nothing more than to frolic and jump on her way out to the veldt for a walk.

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“This little black rhino orphan has spent the morning in the veldt with her caregiver Lucas,” writes the Sanctuary on their social media page. “As part of her rehabilitation program, RiRi walks daily to the veldt to browse on leaves and shrubs. The goal of successful rehabilitation is to prepare a rhino orphan for rewilding and release back into their natural habitat so encouraging natural eating and browsing behaviors is very important. But the cooler weather has made RiRi particularly playful and so full of energy. Check out her gloriously happy jump at the end!”

It’s the cutest thing.

All About the Black Rhinoceros

Black rhinos are the smaller of the two rhinoceros species in Africa, and though also critically endangered, have a slightly larger population extant. Despite the name, black and white rhinos are actually very similar in color, and their color can vary between individual members of each species. Black rhinos are more notable for their “hook” lip, which is different from the other species’ square lips.

They live in southern and eastern Africa, and are generally solitary creatures, except for a female rhino and her calf. Calves stay with their mother for about two to four years, so this orphaned rhino is way too young to be out on her own, and needs the assistance of humans if she has any hope of survival.

The Future For Rhinos

Two rhinoceros species have been declared extinct or functionally extinct in this century: the norther white rhinoceros and the western black rhinoceros. Though some northern white rhinos still exist under heavy guard, the only two specimens are female and cannot reproduce.

The biggest threat facing rhinos is poaching for their horns, used in a variety of traditional medicines and rituals, especially in East Asia, despite no evidence that it has any beneficial effect. Though many efforts have been made to stop this trade, from levying heavy fines to rewriting herbal medicine manuals in China to remove the ingredient, to even removing horns from living rhinos and poisoning the rhinos horns, only a small treatment of anti-poaching measures are effective. And the rhinos in the wild are still being hunted.

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