The founder of Kenya’s Ol Donyo Lodge is now saving lions, rhinos, and elephants.
The sun has just come up over Kenya’s Chyulu Hills and Richard Bonham is already soaring over the plains where giraffes and oryxes are foraging for breakfast. His 44-year-old Cessna 206 has seen better days, but his bronzed fists grip the throttle with the authority of a man who’s logged 8,000 or so hours in the air. Down below, he spots his destination: the Mukururu Rhino Camp, outpost for one battalion of his game scouts. He also spots a problem.
“Ant bears have dug holes in the runway,” he says.
Even though he can only use half the dusty airstrip, Bonham deftly lands the plane and jumps out. At fifty-seven, he’s a trim six feet. He wears sea green chino shorts and R.M Williams half-boots. He’s greeted by Richard Kech. The former Kenya Wildlife Service warden is training Bonham’s scouts to protect the country’s last free-ranging black rhinos from those who’d kill them and saw off their horns.
Bonham’s Maasailand Preservation Trust has recently drilled a well in this preserve, so the dozen or so surviving rhinos won’t have to risk looking for water elsewhere. He’s now come to plot their waterhole. After surveying the lava fields, he maps where the pipes should run. Kech asks him if he’d like to inspect the new recruits—towering young Maasai who’ve traded their red shukas for fatigues. Nine of them fall into formation. Bonham, whose distinguished bearing and burled voice recall Sir Alec Guinness in The Bridge on the River Kwai, walks among them.
“How many of you have seen a rhino before coming here?” Bonham asks in Swahili.
Only a few raise their hands. Bonham tells them they are the first line of defense against armed poachers. You can see the pride in their faces. You can see it, too, in Bonham’s as he watches them attempt regimental drill.
“Well done,” he says. “Well done!”
And, with that, Bonham returns to the sky.
