This is actually a rhino, hanging upside down from its ankles, being dangled by a helicopter.
Your first thought might be that this is horrendous! The poor animals are going to be severely hurt! Surely, this must be the work of someone without a soul.
Nope, this is a science experiment, being funded by Namibian Ministry of Environment. And it’s actually helping them to save the rhino population from dwindling even more.
You see, due to widespread poaching of these animals, their populations have become very low, with most of the animals being concentrated in places like national parks and wildlife reserves. However, there’s a problem which arises due to this high concentration - inbreeding.
Rhinos, unable to find mates from outside, have to resort to mating among their own gene pool. This, of course, leads to a lot of problems - none of which are good for the rhino population.
Because of this, groups dedicated to preserving these majestic beasts have been shifting rhinos away from their families when they reach maturity, so that they can reproduce outside their own gene pool, and prevent inbreeding.
As to how they performed this shifting?
The rhinos were tranquilized, before being secured in box. This box, containing the rhino lying in it, was then flown to other regions by helicopters.
However, analysis showed that this position was quite harmful to the rhinos.
In this position, the muscles of the side on which they were lying, get damaged. These muscles are simply unable to handle their immense weight.
Their lungs also suffer. I don’t exactly get how, but from what I understood, its due to the imbalance of oxygen supply to the two lungs. The one on the lying side gets a lot of oxygen, but the one facing the sky gets too little.
And here enters the hero of our story, Robin Radcliffe, a wildlife veterinarian from Cornell Uni. He proposed that instead of being carried on their side, the rhinos should be hung from their ankles (Ya, I don’t get it either)
This sounds like an insane idea, and it is! But much to everyone’s surprise, his solution actually was proven to be better than the previous method.
He and his colleagues showed the effectiveness of this method by transporting 12 tranquilized black rhinos with the help of the Namibian Ministry of Environment.
In fact, the guy’s idea was so ridiculous, yet effective, that he won the ig-nobel prize for transport technology this year!
The motto of the ig-noble prize is: “Research that makes people laugh and then think”.
And I must say, if there’s any piece of research which deserves this prize, its this one.
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