Rhino Thandi and Family

On 18 October Simon Jones, founder of the NGO Helping Rhinos, paid a visit to Thandi - a big part of his inspiration for starting a great organisation geared to rhino conservation and awareness. Simon spent six weeks in the Kariega Conservation Volunteer Programme, and recently returned to the reserve to see Thandi. He took some lovely images. Thank you Simon for sharing, and for the great work you do through Helping Rhinos.

We received this message from Dr Fowlds this morning. Although it is sad news, we are still positive about Thandi's health and recovery and are sure that her resilience and fighting spirit will prevail. A massive thank you to Dr Fowlds for all your amazing work for Thandi, and all the very hard decisions you have had to make throughout the recovery period. We have no doubt that she could not be in better hands. Thank you too to the surgical doctors, Drs Johan Marias and Alistair Lamont, who flew up from Gauteng without charge to check on Thandi, as well as to Idexx who will be doing Thandi's blood tests. On the bright side, we will be holding thumbs that blood results will reveal she is pregnant!

Thandi the rhino at Kariega Game Reserve has undergone many surgeries and treatments since her horn was hacked off in March last year. This morning, 19 months after she was poached, the Kariega team and Thandi's doctors are preparing for what we hope will be her last treatment procedure.

WildAid documentary on rhino and elephant poaching to air in China, and Dr William Fowlds attends a conference in Vietnam on raising awareness about rhino poaching, hosted by the Department of Vietnam Forestry and Humane Society International (HSI).

My Rhino is an anti-poaching awareness and fundraising initiative that sells beautifully crafted ceramic rhino's with a portion of the proceeds going to the Kariega Foundation Save the Rhino fund. To date, My Rhino has raised R35 000 for the Foundation, and they were also recently part of the St Stithians Girls Prep 'My Rhino Project" which raised over R11 000 for the Kariega Foundation.

We are very pleased that Thandi's wounds seem to be healing very well after her skin graft on Monday 22 July 2013.

Following her skin graft procedure one month ago, Thandi underwent a follow-up procedure yesterday in which doctors and surgeons undertook to assess which of the three skin graft methods applied in June had worked best, as well as to apply further grafting treatment. Dr Marais and Dr Lamont decided that the "split skin" technique had been the most sucessful and during the 50 minute procedure the team cleaned Thandi's wound, checked for any signs of complication or infection, and applied more of the "split skin" grafting method. A fourth method which could not be applied in June was also added to the surgical effort.