The Black Rhino Story That Stayed With Me

Few assignments from my first year at 48 Hours have remained with me as vividly as this one. We traveled deep into the Zimbabwe bush to report on the poaching war threatening the black rhino and spent about ten consecutive days there. We loaded a flatbed truck with tents, sleeping bags, food, water, and beer, knowing we would spend most of two weeks living beside an open fire in a place with no nearby roads.

From a helicopter, a team darted a rhino while we recorded what followed. Dozens of African laborers then worked together to transport the animal to a site called “Capture Camp.” Watching them bring it in was almost like seeing a small dinosaur being moved. Rhinos are extraordinarily powerful and strange to encounter at close range. They also inhabit such isolated territory that workers had to cut a route through the brush by hand before a truck could get near enough to carry one away.

One scene from the assignment remains clearer in my mind than anything else. Each night, we gathered around the fire to review the footage we had filmed that day. About 50 of the approximately 150 local workers at the site would assemble behind us and watch the playback with complete fascination. Our exceptional cameraman and friend, Wim DeVos, captured a photograph of that scene and recently circulated it. Very few images from that period have stayed with me so powerfully.

Wim was part of our crew and was probably the cameraman I worked with most often during my career. Doug Tunnell, who was then our Beirut-based correspondent, was also with us. Not long after completing the story, Doug left CBS and established a vineyard in Washington State. He has been remarkably successful.

The finished 48 Hours report was beautiful. The workers sang as they moved the sedated rhino onto a bivouac. Each rope required 20 men, and several ropes were needed to pull the enormous animal toward the truck that would carry it to camp. Once there, the rhino was placed inside a massive enclosure constructed from logs. It resembled the barrier built to prevent King Kong from entering the village in the movie. People climbed to the top of the fence and watched as the rhino regained consciousness, recognized that it had been confined, and began charging into the walls in an attempt to escape. We later followed several of the animals as they were transported south, farther from the poachers near Zaire who were killing them for their horns.

It remains a wonderful memory and a reminder of how fortunate we were to choose this profession. One week could take you into the Zimbabwe bush, the next could have you investigating the nuclear fallout from Chernobyl, and the week after that you might be interviewing a world leader.