Rhino

Bluesky

These days, documentaries about African megafauna tend to be tragedies, focused on dwindling numbers and a seemingly inescapable path towards extinction. Tom Martienssen’s film is a little different. It centres on Kenya’s Borana reserve, whose ranger team has been so successful that it hasn’t lost a single rhino to poachers in ten years. As a result, the population has boomed, but this has led to another problem. Without room for suitably sized territories, especially when drought sets in, the rhinos are killing each other.

You’ll be pleased to know that there is a solution. There’s ample space in the Loisaba reserve for 21 of the rhinos, substantially easing the problem and setting up a healthy breeding population there - if they can be successfully moved. With tens of miles to be traversed, and armed gangs of poachers en route – not to mention potential danger to rangers from the rhinos themselves – it’s a difficult operation.

The film plays out like a thriller, albeit one which is slow to build. First it sets the scene, dazzling viewers with beautiful landscapes and some rare wildlife footage. Accompanying a young ranger who is explaining how to track down different individual rhinos, we see a new mother with her tiny calf, white smudges on its head where its horns will grow. The ranger is delighted to see that the baby is female – better for population growth, less likely to get into fights.

We meet Kiloku, the chief ranger whose genius has made the place such a success; and Theresia, a woman who lives on the edge of the reserve and keeps track of the movements of poachers; and Rita, a young ranger who is just learning the ropes. All three have vital roles to pay in the manoeuvres to come. Once those begin, the pace picks up quickly. There will be a gun battle before the end, and every bit of training and forward planning will prove vital.

Along the way, we follow what’s happening with the drought, a more frequent problem due to climate change; learn about the food programmes for rhinos and local humans alike; and witness what is probably the strangest form of artificial respiration you will ever see. Tom Hardy narrates, with due weight and sensitivity. Martienssen handles the cinematography himself, and though it’s impressive throughout, it is at the end, when the rains come and Borana floods with colour, that the true majesty of this place and everything that it has accomplished becomes clear.

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