Heartbreaking Photos: Orphaned Baby Rhino Thinks a Car Is His Mom

By Jack Phillips
August 10, 2015 Last Updated: February 28, 2016
Facing extinction are well-known and iconic species such as elephants, hippos, all species of rhino, European bison, and Indian water buffalo. (Nieuwenhuisen/iStock)

A baby rhinoceros in Kruger National Park, South Africa, has mistaken a grey colored jeep as its mother after she was killed by poachers.

Heartbreaking photos show the rhino, named Donnie, cuddling up to the vehicle near the park’s Phabeni Gate last month, reported South African website News24.

Young animals which have lost their mothers tend to recruit replacements in order to survive. As a result, they “imprint” other animals, humans, or objects.

Donnie is now being cared for by are for Wild Africa, an organization that rehabilitates wild animals on a reserve in Mpumalanga.

“He’s doing very well. He drank all his milk and he’s walking around,” the organisation’s Marnelle van der Merwe told News24 on Monday.

While Donnie was being transported to the reserve, he suffered cardiac arrest and the pilot was forced to make an emergency landing, according to Debbie English., the daughter of Kruger’s regional ranger Don English.

“After three minutes of resuscitation and trying everything to save him, everyone involved was amazed (some with tear filled eyes) when he gasped for air and his little heart started up again,” she wrote on Facebook. “After a rough ride he finally made it to his new home where he probably had a good snooze and is now hopefully settled in.”

In recent years, rhinos have been heavily poached for their horns to fuel demand in China, where some believe in the healing properties of the horn. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUNC) in 2011 declared the Western Black Rhino extinct due to poaching