As rhinoceros populations recover, game geeks stampede to Africa

The rhino stepped towards us, close enough to touch.“That’s Kitui,” my guide whispered.In the wilderness of central Kenya, the waist-high railing of my viewing platform felt laughably inadequate against an animal weighing well over a ton.Kitui didn’t mind the barrier.For several minutes, the enormous black rhino stretched his long upper lip beneath the railing, sniffing curiously in our direction like a dog searching for treats.Kitui is an unusual rhino.

Bottle-raised in captivity, he has grown unusually comfortable around people.At Segera, a 50,000-acre wildlife conservancy and safari retreat in Kenya’s Laikipia Plateau, he’s known for wandering around the main lodge and keeping tabs on the guests.Despite his easygoing demeanor, Kitui is also a reminder of just how fragile his species remains.

Black rhinos are still critically endangered after decades of poaching pushed them to the brink of extinction.But across southern and East Africa, conservation organizations are doing something that would have seemed almost unthinkable 20 years ago: moving rhinos not because they’re running out of places to hide, but because they’re running out of space to hold a growing population.The turnaround for Africa’s rhinos is remarkable.

White rhino numbers have rebounded from just a few hundred animals a century ago to about 16,000 today, and black rhinos have risen from just 2,410 in 1995 to 6,788 today.“We have proven that recovery is possible,” said Jo Shaw, CEO of Save the Rhino International.“African rhino conservation efforts are targeting not only the protection of rhinos in order to stop losses due to poaching but also prioritizing relocation and range expansion projects to actively create new populations and grow numbers.”For the first time in a generation, the tide is turning, and success stories from across the continent offer hope for rhino conservation — with the timing especially advantageous for travelers.

There has simply never been a...