Rocky was only seven months old when rescued from beside his poached mother back in October 2018. His fierce defence of his fallen mother from lions was the making of his own survival and he kept the lion pride, and his would be human rescuers, at bay for two days.

Safely captured into the hand raising pens in Bubye Valley Conservancy, Rocky felt no relief and continued with his violent attack on the world, breaking out of the pens into the paddock meant only for larger orphans. At seven months old Rocky needed to be trained onto a bottle for milk, not running around in a paddock with much larger rhinos who could potentially harm or even kill him. Much to everyone’s relief, including Rocky’s, he was instantly adopted by “Squirt” – a veteran of the BVC hand raising scene. Reassured by the companionship Rocky adapted quickly to his new environment and was released back into the bush along with Squirt in April 2019.

Pumpkin’s mother was killed by poachers in July 2020. Seventeen months old at the time, Pumpkin ran from the scene and was tracked down by Lowveld Rhino Trust monitors and found feeding calmly with another rhino. Blood on her spoor though suggested she had not escaped unharmed. On capture it was found that her calmness was due to the severe pain it took to even walk – she had been shot through the chest with a large calibre bullet! 

With a large dose of painkillers administered Pumpkin revealed her true feelings once in the bomas – attacking the walls so viciously she actually broke off her front horn. Normally a black rhino will calm well in a boma situation, quickly learning that the visiting humans mean fresh food and not harm. Pumpkin proved to be no normal black rhino and remained highly aggressive. But one morning she was found quiet and calm, and around the outside of her boma spoor from another rhino could be seen – Rocky had come to visit overnight and the company seemed to have had a soothing effect on Pumpkin.

Expectations were that the pair to join up on release but instead Pumpkin took herself off to a quiet corner of the reserve and remained quite solitary for the following two years. It is only in the last month have these two orphans come back together, as we can see below thanks to the camera trap photograph.