Poachers shot Goose the rhino in the foot and left her to die. She was clinging to life when she was brought to veterinarians at Kruger National Park.
To save Goose’s nearly-destroyed foot, the South African medical team wrapped it in a thick cast.
“Every bone is broken in that foot,” said Catherine Dreyer, a monitoring coordinator at Kruger National Park. She further explained, pointing to a picture of Goose’s injured foot, that it “had no sole, and this pink part is where there was a piece of bone protruding.”
Goose’s cast is replaced every few weeks because it wears out quickly. The process is complicated, but her care team is dedicated to her recovery.
Black rhino horns sell for millions of dollars on the black market. The material is used for both traditional Chinese medicine and as a symbol of status and wealth.
Gangs use sophisticated technology to track and kill rhinos, often taking the animal down with a tranquilizer gun and thereafter removing their horn. Once the rhino awakens, they slowly and painfully bleed to death.
The black rhino has been brought back from the brink of extinction, but truly reviving the population remains a major concern for conservationists.
