{"id":68429,"date":"2012-11-07T08:27:35","date_gmt":"2012-11-07T13:27:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=68429"},"modified":"2012-11-13T14:50:35","modified_gmt":"2012-11-13T19:50:35","slug":"uconn-student-plays-hands-on-role-at-rhino-sanctuary-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2012\/11\/uconn-student-plays-hands-on-role-at-rhino-sanctuary-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"UConn Student Plays Hands-on Role at Rhino Sanctuary, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

A UConn Today journalist reports on the experiences of a UConn senior whom she met when she traveled to South Africa this past summer. This is the second installment of the story, and the last in a special four-part series. For the first part of this story, click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018I am Mom\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

For anywhere from eight to 12 hours a day, Alana Russell ’13 (CANR) served as one of the calf\u2019s devoted caretakers \u2013 bottle-feeding him, playing with him, cleaning up after him, sleeping alongside him among bales of straw, and, as he continued to face several medical issues, offering comfort when he was in pain.<\/p>\n

\"Alana<\/a>
Alana Russell ’13 (CANR) visits with a black rhino calf, the first resident of a newly established orphanage for baby rhinos in South Africa. Russell spent the summer of 2012 at the orphanage serving as one of the calf’s caretakers. (Stefanie Dion Jones\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cTo sum it up, I am Mom,\u201d she said, during an onsite interview. \u201cI eat, sleep, and breathe rhino. In the wild, the babies are with their mom for up to two years. [The mother] does everything; they don\u2019t leave her side.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russell was one of five caregivers who committed their summer to the rhino\u2019s around-the-clock care, taking turns to cover each shift. The bond between the calf and his small group of foster mothers was unmistakable \u2013 he followed them around within his enclosure, looked to them for assurance in the face of an unfamiliar situation, and let out a panicked shriek if they left his line of sight for more than a few minutes.<\/p>\n

Exhausting 12-hour shifts with a fast-growing rhino left Russell with the black-and-blues to prove it. \u201cYou should see my shins; they\u2019re so bruised,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m not nearly as strong as his mom would be. He chases me around \u2026 He\u2019ll try to gore me, basically. It\u2019s play, but it does hurt me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet upon meeting the rhino orphan, it immediately became clear why she and the other caregivers were giving their time and energy to rehabilitate the animal.<\/p>\n

\"UConn<\/a>
For up to 12 hours a day, Alana Russell served as one of the calf\u2019s caretakers \u2013 feeding him, playing with him, cleaning up after him, and comforting him when he was in pain. (Stefanie Dion Jones\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rambunctious and spirited, the five-month-old rhino orphan spent his waking hours darting around, playing \u2018tag\u2019 with his caretakers or running toward a suspended punching bag, which he would butt up into the air with his budding bump of a horn. He would approach a newcomer at the fence of his enclosure to nuzzle an astonishingly velvet-soft snout against their palm, his curled lips searching for fingers to suckle, and give watery-eyed, sidelong glances as he munched on the branches of an acacia tree. Then he would lie down with a dramatic sigh of satisfaction, rolling onto one side so that he could rest his head on the lap of a caretaker and await a tender stroke to his face.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a baby,\u201d said Russell. \u201cHe does what a baby does.\u201d<\/p>\n

And despite the long hours and physical hazards, she said, at the end of the day she often didn\u2019t want to leave.<\/p>\n

A Different Kind of Lifesaving<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not every college student that would give up their summer to nurse a dependent animal back to health, but Russell, it turns out, has had more than her fair share of practice when it comes to saving lives.<\/p>\n

In summer 2011, she found two feral kittens, just a few weeks old, near her home in Rhode Island. Often missing out on nights out with her friends, she made sure she was home every two hours to bottle-feed the kittens. It was a sacrifice she said she made willingly. Although one of the kittens did not survive, the remaining kitten has become the Russells\u2019 family cat.<\/p>\n

For several years, Russell also held a summer job as a lifeguard at Misquamicut State Beach \u2013 a paid position, where she enjoyed the time she was able to spend outdoors. \u201cIt\u2019s funny,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s like someone recently said to me, now I\u2019m just doing a different kind of lifesaving.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russell is quick to point out the playful, affectionate, sometimes mischievous personality of the calf she came to know and love. But she also is realistic: The future of black rhinos is especially dire. Poaching has slashed their population from about 65,000 in 1970 to less than 3,500 today \u2013 a decline of nearly 95 percent in the span of roughly one generation.<\/p>\n

She is concerned that many people may not think of rhinos \u2013 given their immense size, bovine-like appearance, and fairly impassive expressions \u2013 as particularly endearing or smart, and may not regard them as worth fighting for.<\/p>\n

\"UConn<\/a>
Although the orphanage’s intent is to release the rehabilitated rhinos back into the wild, Russell is concerned this may not be possible for the first rescued calf, because of prolonged health issues that have made him over-dependent on humans. (Stefanie Dion Jones\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Most people will never see this rhino cavort in his space at the orphanage. For fear of inadvertently giving access to poachers, the orphanage is closed to the public. Meanwhile, the ultimate goal remains: to release the orphan rhino back into the wild. Until he is at least 18 months old, the calf will continue to require constant care. But over time, plans are to place him in gradually larger enclosures with less and less human contact and, it is hoped, more and more time with fellow rhinos.<\/p>\n

Whether or not the effort will succeed remains to be seen. Part of the problem, Russell explains, is that the calf\u2019s serious health conditions demanded that he be heavily managed \u2013 more so than initially expected. She says it may be difficult to release him. \u201cHe\u2019s taken to humans. And if he went out to the wild, it might actually be dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three months after rescuing its first resident rhino, the orphanage hosted an official opening in August. The story of the orphaned calf made its way around the world, with media from MSNBC to Al Jazeera English covering the story. It was not long before Russell realized that images of her and the orphan rhino were making international headlines.<\/p>\n

The soft-spoken, yet self-assured 21-year-old recognized how fortunate she was to work firsthand with the orphanage and its very first rescued rhino. \u201c[Being at the orphanage] changed me in every which way,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve matured. I live for another being now. I don\u2019t live for myself. It\u2019s ironic because I came here to help him, but \u2013 and it sounds clich\u00e9 \u2013 he helped me. I have a whole new perspective on life. I found a direction for myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

With hopes of going on to graduate school following graduation this coming spring, Russell knows she will return to Africa before long.<\/p>\n

\u201cNever has anything struck me so much,\u201d she says. \u201cI really feel like I can make a difference. Already, I\u2019m on my way.\u201d<\/p>\n

To learn more about the three-week African field ecology course, which fulfills a General Education requirement, visit <\/em>http:\/\/bit.ly\/RgJM3C<\/em><\/a>. To learn more and to support the Rhino Orphanage, \u2018Like\u2019 <\/em>facebook.com\/TheRhinoOrphanage<\/em><\/a> or follow @RhinoOrphanage on Twitter.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senior Alana Russell spent up to 12 hours a day during the summer taking care of an orphaned rhino at a newly established sanctuary in South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":68239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[88,1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[49],"class_list":["post-68429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-global-affairs","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-11 05:37:59","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68429"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68779,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68429\/revisions\/68779"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/68239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68429"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=68429"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=68429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}