Black rhino kills Hungarian wildlife expert in Rwanda

A Hungarian wildlife ecologist has been killed by a black rhinoceros in Rwanda’s Akagera National Park, a park official said on Thursday.

The 43-year old ecologist named Krisztián Gyöngyi died in an accident, the official said without releasing details. He was killed while tracking 18 black rhinos in the north-eastern Akagera National Park that had been relocated from the Republic of South Africa in May, the park’s chief executive Peter Fearnhead told news agency dpa.

Gyöngyi was instrumental in reintroducing the animals to their new environment and training local rangers, said Fearnhead.

Rwanda did not have any black rhinos for at least a decade. In the 1970s, more than 50 black rhinos lived in Akagera National Park, measuring about 1,200 square kilometres, but they were hunted down by poachers until they disappeared.

Before Rwanda, Gyöngyi worked for several years as a wildlife ecologist in Malawi.

Photo: http://malawianrhinos.com

Source: MTI