Welcome!

March 15, 2016

Welcome!

We thought making a blog would be a good idea to post our thoughts, and keep people up to date with us, as well as continuing to spread our message.

Let Rhinos Roam Free is a non-profit organisation dedicating to saving South Africa’s last remaining rhinos. It was founded in 2014 by 3 students from the UK after meeting in South Africa volunteering together on a privately owned reserve that keeps white rhinos.

Left to right: Hobbs, Kate, Anna A

While we were in South Africa we learnt about the rhino crisis and the shocking extent of it. Rhinos are poached for their horns, which are now gram-for-gram worth more than gold. This is to supply a predominately Asian market to supply traditional medicine: where people believe the horn has healing powers - anything from a headache to cancer.

This of course, there is no scientific evidence to support these claims. Rhino Horn is made of Keratin; the same material as our hair and nails. It possesses no medicinal properties whatsoever. However these beliefs date back so far (longer than Christianity) that changing them would be nearly impossible. Equally, the placebo effect plays a part: where people's belief that they will be healed, helps them to heal.

LRRFs is a small operation, but every little helps when it comes to saving Africa’s rhinos, and we intend to do just that, working with extremely passionate people on the ground everyday, 24 hours a day to protect these animals.

While in the UK we obviously can’t be in the field. Nevertheless we do our best to help by increasing people’s awareness and fundraising to send money out to where the rhinos are.

Anyone reading our blog and supporting us is hugely appreciated! We hope you can see how amazing these animals are and why they need to be saved.