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Benito the Giraffe Leaves Extreme Weather at Mexico’s Border and Heads to a More Congenial home 

Benito the giraffe is seen in his enclosure at the Central Park of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, Mexico on January 21, 2024, before been transferred from Ciudad Juarez Central Park to African Safari zoo located in the Puebla state, central Mexico. (AFP)
Benito the giraffe is seen in his enclosure at the Central Park of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, Mexico on January 21, 2024, before been transferred from Ciudad Juarez Central Park to African Safari zoo located in the Puebla state, central Mexico. (AFP)
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Benito the Giraffe Leaves Extreme Weather at Mexico’s Border and Heads to a More Congenial home 

Benito the giraffe is seen in his enclosure at the Central Park of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, Mexico on January 21, 2024, before been transferred from Ciudad Juarez Central Park to African Safari zoo located in the Puebla state, central Mexico. (AFP)
Benito the giraffe is seen in his enclosure at the Central Park of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, Mexico on January 21, 2024, before been transferred from Ciudad Juarez Central Park to African Safari zoo located in the Puebla state, central Mexico. (AFP)

After a campaign by environmentalists, Benito the giraffe left Mexico's northern border and its extreme weather conditions Sunday night and headed for a conservation park in central Mexico, where the climate is more akin to his natural habitat and already a home to other giraffes.

Environmental groups had voiced strong complaints about conditions faced by Benito at the city-run Central Park zoo in Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas, where weather in the summer is brutally hot and temperatures plunge during the winter.

A crane carefully lifted a container holding the giraffe onto a truck while city dwellers in love with the animal said a bittersweet goodbye. Some activists shouted, “We love you, Benito.”

“We’re a little sad that he’s leaving. but it also gives us great pleasure ... The weather conditions are not suitable for him,” said Flor Ortega, a 23-year-old who said she had spent her entire life visiting Modesto the giraffe, which was at the zoo for two decades before dying in 2022, and then Benito, which arrived last May.

The transfer could not have come at a better time, just when a new cold front was about to hit the area.

Benito was heading on a journey of 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) and about 50 hours on the road to his new home, the African Safari park in the state of Puebla. Visitors travel through the park in all-terrain vehicles to observe animals as if they were on safari.

The container, more than five meters high (16.5 feet), was specially designed for Benito, and the giraffe was allowed to become familiar with it during the weekend, said Frank Carlos Camacho, the director of the park.

The animal's head sticks up through the top of the big wooden and metal box, but a frame allows a tarp to cover over Benito and insulate him from the cold, wind and rain as well as from noise and the sight of landscape speeding by.

“The giraffe has huge, huge eyes and gains height to be able to look for predators in the savannah and we have to inhibit that so that it does not have any source of stress,” Camacho said in a video posted on social media.

Inside the container is straw, alfalfa, water and vegetables, and electronic equipment will monitor the temperature and allow technicians to even talk to the animal.

Outside, Benito will be guarded by a convoy of vehicles with officers from the Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection and the National Guard.

“He’s going to be calm, he’s going to travel super well. We’ve done this many times,” Camacho said.

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Cutting Off Rhinos' Horns is a Contentious Last Resort to Stop Poaching. New Study Found it Works

A de-horned rhino grazes in South Africa's Pilanesberg National Park, Feb. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
A de-horned rhino grazes in South Africa's Pilanesberg National Park, Feb. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
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Cutting Off Rhinos' Horns is a Contentious Last Resort to Stop Poaching. New Study Found it Works

A de-horned rhino grazes in South Africa's Pilanesberg National Park, Feb. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
A de-horned rhino grazes in South Africa's Pilanesberg National Park, Feb. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

Cutting off the horns of sedated rhinos with a chainsaw has been viewed by wildlife conservationists in Africa for more than 30 years as a necessary evil to save the iconic endangered species from poaching.

They hoped the drastic action was working, but evidence was scarce.

Now, a study published Thursday in the academic journal Science has found that dehorning rhinos has led to a large reduction in poaching in game reserves in and around the Kruger National Park in northern South Africa — an area that's home to 25% of the world's rhinos and is especially vulnerable to poaching.

The results of the seven-year study that ended in 2023 are seen as long-awaited evidence that removing rhinos' horns — which needs to be done every one to two years because they grow back — helps them survive, even if the animals lose part of their makeup.

Consistently reduced poaching The conclusions seem obvious. Lucrative illegal markets in parts of southeast Asia and China crave rhino horns for use in traditional medicines, and removing the rhinos' horns take away what poachers are after.

But Tim Kuiper, a biodiversity scientist at South Africa's Nelson Mandela University and the lead author of the study, said it was new to have long-term data from multiple sites on dehorning rhinos. He said the study, conducted between January 2017 and December 2023, focused on 11 reserves in the Kruger area and compared data from eight that dehorned their rhinos against the three that didn't.

It also analyzed data from the reserves before and after they dehorned their rhinos.

The study showed that dehorning consistently reduced poaching, Kuiper said. It found that the dehorning of more than 2,000 rhinos resulted in a 78% reduction in poaching in those eight reserves, providing some confirmation that such an invasive intervention was worth it.

“It is a big part of what a rhino is, having a horn,” The Associated Press quoted Kuiper as saying. “So having to remove it is kind of a necessary evil, if I can put it that way. But it’s very effective. There’s no doubt it saved hundreds of rhinos' lives.”

South Africa has the largest numbers of black and white rhinos. Namibia, Zimbabwe and Kenya also have significant populations. There are around 17,500 white rhinos and 6,500 black rhinos left in the world, with black rhino numbers reduced from 70,000 in 1970 to less than 2,500 by the time poaching reached a crisis point in the mid-1990s, according to the Save the Rhino organization.

Dehorning was not always accepted Dehorning rhinos started in southern Africa as early as 1989. It has not been accepted without question.

There has been opposition from animal rights activists but also questions from conservationists over what impact it has on a rhino's wellbeing, and what a future might look like with more hornless rhinos.

Vanessa Duthe, a rhino researcher in South Africa not involved in the study, said rhinos use their horns to defend themselves against predators, to compete for territory and, in the case of black rhinos, to look for food. There is also evidence that dehorned rhinos adjust their movements to live in smaller ranges, she said.

She said conservationists don't know the full impacts of dehorning, but research had found it had no adverse effect on rhinos' breeding rates or mortality rates.

“What we do know is that the benefits of dehorning by far outweigh any ecological cost that we’re aware of today,” Duthe said. She said dehorning a rhino now takes around 10 minutes and the process causes minimum distress.

Blindfolds and earmuffs are put on sedated rhinos during dehorning, which also provides an opportunity to microchip rhinos and collect samples that aid research.

Only one part of the battle Conservationists agree that dehorning alone will not end rhino poaching and Kuiper said he saw it as a short-to-mid-term solution.

Other efforts like more effective law enforcement and better support for game rangers on the frontline are key.

While South Africa has helped pull rhinos back from the threat of extinction, more than 400 rhinos a year are still killed by poachers in the country.

The dehorning study was a collaboration between scientists from three South African universities, Oxford University in England and game reserve managers and rangers. It also involved the South African National Parks department, the World Wildlife Fund and the Rhino Recovery Fund.