I have been a photographer my whole life. I was born into it. My dad was an underwater photographer. Cameras, oceans, animals, patience, light, all of that was part of my childhood. Those early years shaped the way I would see the world for the rest of my life.
What I never imagined was that, years later, photography would become a way for me to highlight environmental concerns. I thought I was just chasing light and moments. Somewhere along the way, my camera became a way to bring people closer to animals they may never see in person and make them care a little more about what happens to them.
In 2017, I went on an expedition to Africa. I drove across the Serengeti in Tanzania and traveled across Kenya. I saw elephants, lions, cheetahs, giraffes — more animals than I could have imagined. But on that entire trip, I only saw one rhino.
At least, that is what it looked like from where I was — a speck in the distance, seen through the longest lens I had. That distant sighting stuck with me. I started reading about rhinos, and I began to understand how bad things really were.
At the beginning of the 20th century, there were an estimated 500,000 rhinos in the world. By 1970, that number had dropped to about 70,000. Today, there are roughly 26,700 rhinos left across all five species. Southern white rhinos are often called one of conservation’s great success stories, having recovered from fewer than 100 animals in the early 1900s to more than 15,000 today, though they are still heavily threatened by poaching. Black rhinos, once far more widespread, were devastated as well, dropping from around 70,000 in 1970 to just 2,410 by 1995 before slowly recovering to more than 6,700 today.
Then I learned about Najin and Fatu.
They are the last two northern white rhinos left on earth. Mother and daughter. Both are living under constant protection at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. Their subspecies once numbered in the thousands, but decades of poaching and civil war pushed them to the edge. By the mid-1980s, only 15 remained. Now there are two. That is a hard thing to wrap your head around. An entire branch of life down to two animals.
I went back to Kenya to see them and to learn more about what Ol Pejeta was doing. Standing there with Najin and Fatu was one of those moments that changes something in you. They were beautiful, ancient-looking animals, grazing quietly while armed rangers watched over them. It was heartbreaking and hopeful at the same time.
When I came home, I put together a fundraiser here in Wimberley to help support the conservation work at Ol Pejeta. With the money raised and donated, we were able to adopt a southern white rhino calf.
She was born on New Year’s Eve, December 31, 2020. We named her “Wimberley.” She will turn six years old this New Year’s Eve.
There is something hard to explain about standing in Kenya and watching a rhino named after your hometown walk across the open plains. She does not know who I am. She does not know there is a small town in Texas connected to her story. She is just being a rhino. Alive. Wild. Protected.
That is the whole point of conservation. It can be easy to get lost in the numbers — how many animals are left, how many were poached, how much habitat is gone. After a while, the statistics become so big and so sad that people stop listening.
But one animal is different. One rhino named Wimberley is easier to understand.
She reminds me that conservation does not always begin with some grand gesture. Sometimes it begins with curiosity. Sometimes it begins with one distant animal seen through a long lens. Sometimes it begins with a small town deciding that something far away still matters.
Somewhere in Kenya, there is a rhino named Wimberley walking through the grass.
And somehow, a little piece of this town is walking with her.
(Rodney Bursiel is a National Geographic award-winning wildlife and adventure photographer based in Wimberley. His work has taken him to all seven continents, documenting wildlife above and below water, with a focus on conservation and storytelling. He is a member of Wimberley Arts.org. www.rodneybursiel.com)
