VIP passengers: the five black rhinos flown 2,700 miles on a mission to repopulate Chad

When they last tried to relocate this critically endangered species, only two females survived. Have conservationists learned enough to end a 40-year local extinction?

For more than five years, the two black rhinos in Chad's Zakouma national park have lived a lonely existence. It wasn't meant to be that way. In May 2018, the pair of females were part of a group of six critically endangered black rhinos that African Parks helped translocate from South Africa to Zakouma. But within days of release into their new home, four had died.

It happened very quickly. It's not a pure science, doing translocations," says Martin Rickelton, African Parks' regional operations manager. An awful lot of work went into feasibility studies - experts looked at everything."