Where have all the rhinos gone?

It’s been a few weeks since we’ve found any new rhino dung, and during that time we haven’t found any recent signs of rhino activity in the areas the rhinos are thought to use the most. So where have all the rhinos gone?

Talking to park staff and local people, it seems that the rhinos (or rhino) have moved a little to the north and east of the usual areas. Following these suggestions, we took a long walk out from one of our camps recently, and found rhino footprints along a river. Local people said that a rhino had been in that area in early February. Here's a rhino's eye view of the location where it entered the river:

In the next few weeks we’ll concentrate on this part of the study area, searching for the ever elusive Javan Rhino dung.

 

 

So why have the rhinos moved? As we reported last week there are now fewer wet wallows and swampy areas down here, but it’s hard to imagine that this is the only factor causing the rhinos to move. There is still enough mud and water for me to sink up to my waist in places such as this:

And enough wetness to keep a large water-loving animal such as this one very happy:

The rhinos movements could be related to seasonal changes in water or food availability, but we don’t really know. There are no data on the rhino movements here across a number of years, or during this time of year, so it’s impossible to draw any conclusions from what we are finding, or not finding as the case may be! Whatever the reasons for the movements, we’re just hoping that we can track the rhinos down in the next couple of weeks and get our hands on more of that dung (not that we actually touch it with our hands, of course, owing to risk of DNA contamination).