As daybreak filtered through the spindly stands of Euclea trees, an unusually large patient awaits medical intervention from Dr. Florence Kang’ethe, Ol Pejeta’s resident veterinarian. The morning carried the lingering chill you’d expect at the foothills of Mt Kenya.
The air, pregnant with anticipation. There was a sense of agency to do something extraordinary. The patient, Jayjay, is a 14-year-old male Southern white rhino. Recently, he got severely bruised in a fight with another bull over Faith, an attractive female southern white rhino.
Veterinary interventions on rhinos are a Herculean mission (no pun intended). First you must find the rhino. And for the world’s second largest land mammal, you’d assume finding one is an easy ask. You are wrong. Spirited search missions from rangers bore no fruit for 11 days. “When you are looking for a specific individual rhino, you’ll see all the elusive cats and everything else apart from that specific specimen,” jokes Abraham Njenga, the wildlife operations manager at Ol Pejeta Conservancy. The rangers scoured through the landscape with no sight of the injured rhino. Jayjay was already making strong claims to a new throne: the king of hide and seek in the wild.
Unfortunately, on 12th November 2025, a hawk-eyed ranger, Lepirikine Perenges, finally burst Jayjay’s bubble. From there, word got around and the various stakeholders got into full swing: Kenya Wildlife Service capture teams, vets, rangers, and scientists. Leading the charge was KWS Vet Dr. Matthew Mutinda, a seasoned expert in the field of veterinary medicine to oversee and provide technical guidance to a relatively young team of veterinarians. A veteran in the trade, Dr. Mutinda has his eyes set on mentoring younger vets and coaching them to ensure they can confidently handle such high-profile assignments. “I’m here to make sure the next generation of vets are well equipped with the right skills to tend to wildlife,” he states.
“Team, are we all ready? Remember, you cannot afford to get wrong footed in the heat of a commotion. Plan, plan, plan,” declares Dr. Mutinda. Immense preparations go into the planning and execution of rhino veterinary interventions on many fronts; logistics, coordination of operations between partners, spotting the animal, darting, capture, treatment, release and monitoring. The experienced teams work like a well-oiled machine.
An African fish eagle curiously watches the unfolding events with keen interest.
Dr. Florence hops on a helicopter to get a bird’s eye view of the elusive rhino and immobilize it using a dart gun. She hits the target with her first shot. The sedated rhino starts to stumble. Ground crew swiftly move in. A kerfuffle ensues as a group of grown men holding heavy sisal ropes are dragged by the drowsy animal. Dr. Mutinda calls the shots as he keeps a close gaze on the workings of three younger vets: Dr. Florence Kangethe, Dr. Joseph Mbuthia and Dr. Aaron Lang’at. The rhino has visibly deep cuts in the inguinal area. Dr. Joseph cleans the wound with hydrogen peroxide, then water and then disinfects it with iodine. The wound is later infused with opticlox ointment, which is an antibiotic before it’s sealed using clay. The clay is used to avoid external contamination of the wound.
“The wound is infected and it’s deep. It’s about the size of my palm,” Dr Florence explains as the teams retreat away from the rhino. “If these types of wounds are left untreated, the infection can go systemic putting the health of the rhino at serious risk.” Jayjay gets back on his feet and dashes off with an extra spring in his stride.
Kenya’s White Rhino Conservation and Management Action Plan require us to manage the health and welfare of all individual rhinos. Interventions like this are not only critical to giving injured rhinos a new lease of life but also bringing back rhino numbers up after they were severely depleted in the 1980s poaching. But there is yet another reason for this intervention. With an injury, Jayjay becomes vulnerable to losing his next fight. And this much-needed boost might just be the little he needs to get back to his best shape.