Niger

At Aquila Game Reserve the lions are separated from the other animals so we drove into the section reserved for them and immediately saw 2 lionesses and a large male lion. African lions are vulnerable because their population has decreased by 40 per cent since the 1990s.

There were also several southern white rhinos. Their horns had been trimmed to prevent poaching. At another Game Preserve 2 pregnant rhinos had recently been poached for their horns. There are two subspecies of white rhinoceros: northern which exist only in the form of a preserved fertilized egg and southern which has about 20,000 animals. They are grey, not white. No one knows why they are called white rhinos.Read more