The cry of an orphaned baby rhino, left alone when its mother has been killed by poachers, isn’t a pleasant sound.
The lucky ones get rescued before they’re attacked by their hungry predators.
That was the case for two baby rhinos, a three-month-old and a 11-month-old, when they were brought to a rhino orphanage in South Africa after their mothers were slaughtered by poachers.
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According to the veterinarian tasked with helping the baby rhinos recover, the rhinos are settling in at the Port Elizabeth orphanage after they survived the first two critical days without their mothers.
The three-month-old was so traumatized it had to be sedated.
The orphans’ mothers were among three adult white rhinos killed on March 24, after they were shot with a dart gun and dehorned at the Sibuya Reserve.
A third rhino, named Bingo, was blinded as a result of the attack and died one day later after he stumbled into a river.
The baby rhinos are under constant care in a rehabilitation enclosure. The older rhino started grazing and the smaller rhino is successfully taking milk from a bottle.