Watching Director Tony Gerber and his supremely talented team at work was an inspiration. The power trio of cameramen Ian Kerr and Aaron Haesler and soundman Simon Doucet produced breathtaking footage and sound. Whether it was a camera attached to the sedated rhino’s collar or complex camera mounts on vehicles and elephants, they each deserved an honorary engineering degree.
It was a long, hard year’s-worth of work to produce “Chasing Rhinos” and it was a labor of love. We all came away with a new appreciation for the massive challenges facing the wildlife protectors in Nepal. I’ll never forget how deeply affected everyone was by the scenes of carnage as we walked among countless items confiscated from poachers at Tikauli: skins, bones, teeth, horns, gall-bladders of endangered species, some with flesh still attached. Nobody was more deeply affected than Janet Han Vissering, Nat Geo Wild SVP and Executive Producer of Chasing Rhinos. But she kept the production on schedule despite a multitude of roadblocks and changes.
Hope for rhinos
As sobering as that experience was, the good news is that rhinos are on the rebound in Nepal’s Chitwan National Park thanks to concerted conservation efforts. Fifty years ago, they numbered as few as 65 in Nepal. Today, poaching is still a problem due to the mistaken belief that rhino horn holds to cure everything from cancer to hangovers. But there is hope for the future. The Government of Nepal, WWF, The National Trust for Nature Conservation and other partners work with local communities to share tourist revenues and develop incentives for people to protect the wildlife and their habitats.
At the moment, rhino conservation is seen as a conservation success story in Nepal, but as Billy saw, this is no time to let down our guard. We all must remain eternally vigilant as demand for their horns from other Asian countries is on the increase.
Billy’s rhino will likely have a new home in the coming years. Plans are underway to translocate rhinos halfway across the country to set up new populations in other Nepali parks as a buffer against disease, poaching outbreaks and other threats. Since Billy’s rhino already has a tracking collar attached that makes him a prime candidate. Hopefully he’ll send a change of address postcard to L.A.