Yorkshire Wildlife Park unveils plans to help save black rhino

The Yorkshire Wildlife Park is charging ahead with plans to help save the critically endangered black rhino as part of a £3.6m expansion and improvement plan for 2016.

The current African Plains will be completely redeveloped and expanded in a £1.6m project to create a walk through Safari experience featuring a new rhino house and integrated reserves. It is hoped that the new area will open this summer.

The park, at Branton, near Doncaster, is a leading centre for animal conservation. Plans are advanced to bring black rhino to their new reserve, which will be dedicated to the animals whose numbers have fallen due to illegal poaching and changing habitat.

Their population declined by 96% to less 3,000 from a devastating period of poaching for their horns which are used to make ornamental crowns, cups and ceremonial daggers as well as for herbal medicine.

One sub-species of black rhino was declared extinct by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in 2011 but a global conservation programme has helped nurse black rhino numbers to around 5,000.The Yorkshire Wildlife Park Foundation will be launching projects to assist conservation effort.The black rhino, which used to be native across wide areas of Africa, can measure 6ft tall at the shoulder and weigh in at 3,000lbs, roughly the same weight as a family estate car.

YWP will be only the seventh zoo in the UK to provide a home for the species.