After the last rhino was hunted and killed in 1983, Uganda lost its last rhino in the wild. But now, some 40 years later, two have been translocated into Kidepo Valley National Park, Uganda’s most remote wilderness, paving the way for Uganda’s only Big Five park, and a new chapter in wildlife conservation.
We’re in our safari vehicle exploring Kidepo Valley National Park in northeastern Uganda, when our guide, Alfred Abcondo, points out a savannah in the distance. “That’s where the new rhinos will be.”
This is big news: Thanks to hunters of the past, Uganda hasn’t had rhinos in the wild for over 40 years. It was only a few days after this drive, on Tuesday March 17, 2026, by which time I was in western Uganda, that we read two southern white rhinos had been translocated to their new home here.
Lions, leopards, elephants and buffalo already call Kidepo home. And once the rhinos are officially released into the park proper, it means for the first time in decades, Uganda will have a Big Five park. From a conservation and tourism perspective, that’s huge.
I should add, that for many people, including those in the safari industry, the term ‘Big Five’ is a tad misleading. When hunting was at its insufferable peak during the British colonial era (circa 1894–1962), the term was coined to mean the most dangerous animals to hunt on foot; lion, leopard, elephant, rhino and buffalo. But it didn’t mean the largest or deadliest or most ‘coveted’.
As a luckily frequent safari-goer, I can say that while buffalo are indeed majestic—not least for their impressive headpieces which resemble a judge’s wig—the average traveler gets more excited if they see a giraffe. As for dangerous, the Big Five excludes the hippo, which kills more than 500 people a year; as hippos remain submerged in water for most of the day and weren’t typically hunted on foot, they didn’t ‘make’ the Big Five.
But while the term is ‘Big Five’ is somewhat outdated, the reality is it has come to mean the most sought-after animals to see, and therefore used in marketing a national park. But semantics aside, the rhino story isn’t a happy one here. Uganda was once home to an estimated 700 wild rhinos, but the last one was hunted and killed in 1983 in Kidepo reducing the population in Uganda to zero. Total extinction in the wild.
For Abcondo who works at Wild Places’ Apoka Lodge, the only lodge inside the national park, the return of rhinos marks a historical and ecological restoration for Kidepo and the hope for the park to become a top-tier safari destination. “The Big Five status will also enhance the park’s biodiversity and boost tourism,” he tells me. “Southern white rhinos will improve the grass levels by pruning too.”
Kidepo could certainly do with a profile boost. It’s Uganda’s most remote and least visited national park, but personally, it’s one of the most striking wildernesses I’ve had the fortune to visit. A national park since Ugandan independence in 1962, it’s an ‘everything’ park, with, for now 77 mammal species, nearly 500 bird species and spectacular landscapes across semi-arid valleys and vast savannah. The region is also home to two Indigenous communities, the semi-nomadic Karamojong, and the hunter-gather Ik people.
Patrick Okwelle, head of the guiding team at Apoka Lodge and the company’s longest-serving guide, hopes that the eventual rhino population will boost tourism to an undervisited region: “I hope tourism will be booming in Kidepo,” he says, “and that local communities will benefit from employment.” Okwelle has experience with species relocation, having worked in the past on projects to relocate giraffes and eland (world’s largest antelope) to Kidepo.
The two southern white rhinos who now call Kidepo home were translocated by by the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA). from the private Ziwa Rhino and Wildlife Ranch. 62 miles (100 kilometers) north of the capital, Kampala, Ziwa has run Uganda’s first white rhino breeding program for over 20 years, after it brought over four southern white rhinos from a Kenyan game reserve in 2005.
This first pair is hopefully the first of eight to be re-introduced to Kidepo. This more remote national park in Uganda’s northern region was chosen for its habitat and security facilities; the rhinos will be protected, complete with perimeter fencing, monitoring, road access, ranger stations and other facilities.
For all the conservation efforts of UWA, national parks, wildlife organizations and dedicated individuals, poaching is still an issue in Uganda (and around the world); as a result, security has been a top priority when considering this move. Classified as ‘near threatened’ by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), there are fewer than 16,000 southern white rhinos in existence. Given the precarious nature of translocation and the logistics of wildlife relocation, no date has been set for when the rhinos will be roaming wildly around the national park.
Whenever that momentous day will be, this is a huge step for Uganda wildlife conservation. “This moment marks the beginning of a new rhino story for Kidepo Valley National Park,” UWA’s executive director James Musinguzi told Reuters. “Translocation of these rhinos is the first step in restoring a species that once formed part of the park’s natural heritage.”
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Find out more about Kidepo National Park and Apoka Lodge, the only lodge inside the national park
Read the Uganda Wildlife Authority’s report of the translocation of these two rhinos to Kidepo Valley National Park
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London-born-and-bred with a Ugandan-Indian heritage, Meera Dattani is Adventure.com's executive editor and an award-winning freelance travel journalist. Her stories center on food and cultural heritage, wildlife and conservation, and soft adventure, often through a lens of decolonizing and modernizing travel writing. Her work has been published in National Geographic Traveller, BBC Travel, Condé Nast Traveller, Olive magazine and many others.
