Daphne Sheldrick called rhinos ‘the last living dinosaurs.’ It’s a fitting epithet: with their hulking stature, leathery hides, and formidable horns, rhinos appear to be invincible. Over the past 60 million years, they have braved ice ages, battled prehistoric predators, and biologically adapted for the modern world.

Not so long ago, Kenya was teeming with black rhinos. In fact, they were oft considered vermin, notorious for raiding crops and clobbering unsuspecting passersby. No game drive in Tsavo was complete without experiencing a full-blown rhino charge as one barrelled out of the bush.

But that all changed when the far reaches of the world got a taste for rhino horn, fuelling a catastrophic wave of poaching that decimated the species. Prized for its perceived medicinal properties and as a status symbol, rhino horn is actually mostly keratin, much like a human fingernail. Human greed, however, saw only dollar signs.

Before the 1970s, some 20,000 black rhinos roamed freely across Kenya. By the mid-1980s, populations had plummeted to fewer than 400. In little more than a decade, the once-ubiquitous symbols of Kenya’s wilderness had been nearly poached to extinction.

Today, black rhinos are the face of a tentative comeback story here in Kenya. Despite the heavy losses rhinos suffered at the hands of poachers, our country’s populations have climbed back. Kenya now holds the third-largest rhino population in Africa, with approximately 2,102 individuals: at last count, 1,059 black rhinos, 1,041 southern white rhinos, and the world’s two remaining northern white rhinos.

Rhinos are inextricably linked with our past, present, and future. During their early Tsavo days, Daphne and David Sheldrick were among the first people in Kenya to successfully raise orphaned rhinos. Over the years, we have successfully raised 20 orphaned black rhinos.

When the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust was established in 1977, it was to address the most pressing conservation issues at the time. Our first decade focused largely on rhino conservation — as Daphne said, ‘something needed to be done rapidly.’ We were keenly aware that, without immediate action, Kenya ran the very real risk of losing all its rhinos.

The Trust helped fund Tsavo West National Park’s first dedicated stronghold for rhinos, Ngulia Rhino Sanctuary. In the 1970s, orphaned rhinos Stroppy and Hoshim (raised by Daphne and David in Tsavo) were translocated to Solio Ranch, where they became the founding population of the renowned Solio Rhino Sanctuary. We also supported the foundation of Lake Nakuru Rhino Sanctuary and later Meru Rhino Sanctuary.

Like the other rhino sanctuaries, Meru has been an extraordinary success, emerging as yet another important stronghold for the species. Working in partnership with the Kenya Wildlife Service, we provide ongoing support, including the installation of essential infrastructure and security upgrades to ensure the safety of its threatened residents. We also funded a fencing expansion that more than doubled the size of the sanctuary, and continue to fund the maintenance of this ‘wild border,’ which protects both the rhinos within the sanctuary and the communities who neighbour them.

We also devote significant time and resources to rhino conservation within the Tsavo Conservation Area. Our Aerial Unit conducts regular rhino monitoring and surveillance patrols in the Tsavo Conservation Area, including the Ngulia Rhino Sanctuary, the Intensive Protection Zone in Tsavo West National Park, and the IPZ in Tsavo East National Park, all of which are home to significant populations of critically endangered black rhinos. Last year alone, our pilots conducted 182 rhino patrols, logging 502 flight hours.

Not so long ago, there were too many black rhinos to possibly identify. Today, at a time when every single individual plays a role in the future of the species, this level of forensic monitoring has become essential. Visual markers like ear notches allow pilots, rangers, and other personnel to easily identify individual rhinos, while advanced tools like LoRa radio transmitters enable teams to remotely track their movements over long distances. To further support this level of oversight, we funded the installation of an extensive LoRa network across the Tsavo Conservation Area, along with a VHF repeater network in Tsavo East. This ensures LoRa tracking devices and radio communications remain live, and that every field team has full coverage in what was historically a communications dead zone.

Our newest innovation is a dedicated Drone Unit, operated in partnership with the Kenya Wildlife Service, to bolster our anti-poaching operations. Flying day and night with thermal imaging technology, the teams extend our patrol capability into terrain and hours that were previously out of reach. Recently, our drone teams located two rhinos in Tsavo that had long eluded field teams — just one example of the enhanced monitoring this new technology makes possible.

Our rhino conservation support takes us across Kenya. Last June, the SWT helicopter supported the translocation of 12 black rhinos to Segera Conservancy in Nanyuki — a visionary effort to restore the species to a landscape where they had been absent for 60 years. Working alongside ground teams, our pilots provided aerial support for darting, locating, and tracking rhino candidates, as well as emergency veterinary interventions for rhinos that had broken through sanctuary fencing or sustained fighting injuries.

In the Maasai Mara, the Aerial Unit supported a two-year effort to ear-notch and fit selected individuals with low-impact radio tags that allow field teams to track their movements, successfully darting 27 rhinos across the operation. Our pilots also played a key role in Kenya’s largest-ever notching operation, in which 90 black rhinos in Tsavo West were darted from the air, ear-notched, and fitted with trackers. Just last month, they provided aerial support to ear notch and fit trackers on a further 15 individuals.

Conservation is only as effective as the people doing the work on the ground. Last year, we invested significantly in those people and the infrastructure supporting them. We completely revamped the Tsavo East Rhino Monitoring Headquarters, giving KWS personnel a state-of-the-art facility from which to conduct their operations in Kenya’s largest national park. We donated vehicles for rhino rangers working in the Mara and rebuilt their bases. In support of safe rhino translocations, we donated eight rhino crates to the KWS Animal Capture Unit to move rhinos out of conflict zones and into viable habitats.

And of course, working in partnership with the Kenya Wildlife Service, our SWT/KWS Mobile Veterinary Units are at the frontlines of rhino conservation. From emergency treatments to technical cases that support their protection, our teams are there to answer the call for any rhino in need. To date, they have attended to 513 rhino cases, supporting 1,215 individuals in the process.

While we help to foster a future for rhinos across Kenya, we are nurturing the next generation through our Orphans’ Project. We have successfully hand-raised 20 orphaned black rhinos to date. Each individual rescued represents the possibility of entire rhino dynasties — indeed, our ex-orphans have a lineage of success, with many going on to raise their own offspring in the wild. Solio, a black rhino we rescued in 2010, is now living wild in Nairobi National Park and a mother of two.

We currently have four orphaned black rhinos in our care. Maxwell, who is blind and will have a forever home with us, has become a beloved ambassador for his species. Apollo, now an impressive seven-year-old, is working his way back to the wild. Three-year-old Chamboi will soon follow in his footsteps. Little Tytan, who was only rescued last September, is just beginning his journey with us.

Watch a special Nursery livestream, putting our orphan herd to bed on the eve of World Rhino Day:

Kenya is rewriting its rhino story — and we thank you for the critical role you play in it. Because of supporters like you, we have been able to turn a hopeless tale around, restoring a species that was on the brink of collapse.

This year to date, our teams have recorded 653 rhino sightings within their patrol areas. While this number includes duplicate individuals and does not reflect the country’s total population, it offers an insightful glimpse into the state of Kenya’s rhinos today. They may no longer be found behind every bush or in every farm field, but they are very, very present — especially for those who know where to look. For a species that all but disappeared just a few decades ago, that is a triumph worth celebrating.