Maarifa

This is the heart-breaking story of Maarifa, a baby white rhino.

On 1st November 2018, staff from the Meru National Rhino Park saw a mother rhino trying
to save her one-day old baby who was stuck in a pool of mud. The mother was doing
everything she could to save her baby, but she couldn’t do it, and her baby was nearly dead.
In the end, the staff decided they had to save the baby.
They succeeded in saving the baby from the mud, but the next job was to get the mother to
accept her baby again. The staff tried over several days to re-unite mother and baby, but the
mother would not take her baby back. She was moving further away and leaving the baby by
herself. Sometimes wild animals will not re-unite with their babies after people have touched
them.
It was a very difficult decision for the park staff to make, but finally they had to accept that
the baby was getting weaker, that its mother was not coming back and that the baby would die
without their help.
At first, they took the baby to their base camp where they gave her water and made her a
warm bed. Someone stayed with her all night. The next day, she was taken by helicopter to
Nairobi National Park in Kenya. One of the carers held her in his arms for the one-hour flight.
She was given the name Maarifa which means ‘knowledge’ in Swahili (an African language).
Maarifa soon settled into her new life and became a great favourite with everyone including
people who visited the park. She loved drinking milk from her bottle and sleeping on her soft
warm bed. She ran around her new home, followed her keepers and played games with them.
She was soon the boss of the park and she definitely had a mind of her own. She was playful
and had a lot of energy. She was healthy, putting on weight and very active. She was growing
up very well.
However, 5 months later, on the morning of 25 March 2019, Maarifa was very ill. Her
keepers and the doctors did everything they could to save her, but sadly she died.
Maarifa’s life was short and her death was sudden, unexpected and shocking. She touched the
hearts of everyone who met her, and it broke our hearts when she died.