CHAMBOI, BAM, BOOZLE!

He was found alone at barely a day old. Three years later, this little black rhino has a family,

A future

&

Two rather persistent ostriches for best friends.

When rangers spotted a tiny black rhino standing alone beside a waterhole in Kenya’s Tsavo West National Park, something was very wrong.

The newborn calf was thought to be only around a day old. His mother was nowhere to be seen, and despite hours spent searching the surrounding landscape from the air, there was no sign of her.

The little rhino was already shaky and suffering from low blood sugar. Left alone in the bush, vulnerable to predators including hyenas and jackals, his chances of survival were disappearing fast.

So rescuers stepped in.

Kenya Wildlife Service and Tsavo Trust rangers worked with the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust to bring the calf to its Kaluku Neonate Nursery, in the same Tsavo ecosystem where he had been born.

They called him Chamboi, after a hill in Tsavo West National Park. Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

A difficult beginning

Being rescued was only the start.

Because Chamboi had been separated from his mother so soon after birth, he had missed out on her colostrum — the nutrient-rich first milk that gives newborn mammals vital early protection.

For some time, his carers battled repeated stomach problems. But Chamboi had something rather useful on his side: an excellent appetite.

As his molars appeared and he began eating leafy greens, the tiny, fragile calf grew stronger.

And then his personality started to emerge.

Chamboi developed very definite ideas about how life ought to be lived. He became particularly attached to one cherry-red woollen blanket, apparently refusing to accept substitutes.

He also discovered mud baths, afternoon naps, tummy rubs and racing his keepers through the bush — sometimes at what has been described as more of a skip than a run. Good Good Good

Then came Bam and Boozle

During Chamboi’s first year, two orphaned ostrich chicks arrived on the scene.

Their names were Bam and Boozle.

And Bam and Boozle apparently decided that Chamboi was their new best friend.

Whether Chamboi had actually applied for the position was largely irrelevant.

The two gangly birds simply began following the stocky little rhino everywhere — out into the bush, across the airstrip, down to the mud bath and all the way home again.

An orphaned black rhino and two ostriches may not be the most obvious friendship group.

Nobody appears to have told them that. Good Good Good

A wild future

Today, Chamboi is three years old and still lives at Kaluku, surrounded by his keepers and other rescued animals.

But this isn’t intended to be his permanent home.

Black rhinos remain critically endangered, and Chamboi is being raised with a future in the wild in mind. When the time is right, the Trust plans for him to begin the long process of returning to a protected wild environment. Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

His survival is particularly poignant given what happened to his species in Kenya. The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust says the country’s black-rhino population crashed from around 20,000 in 1970 to just 350 in 1983. Decades of conservation work have since helped the population recover to well over 950. Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

So the newborn calf once found trembling beside a waterhole now represents something much bigger.

Chamboi has grown from a desperately vulnerable orphan into a healthy young rhino with the prospect of one day taking his place among Kenya’s wild population.

Until then, there are walks to take, mud baths to enjoy and keepers to supervise.

And, naturally, Bam and Boozle.

Because apparently every rhino needs an ostrich entourage.