Look out!
That baby rhino is charging — for a hug!
Because even though Marang is a rhino,
he enjoys pets like a puppy
and sitting in laps like a puppy,
though, he's a bit too big for that.
And he loves his rescuers like they were his parents,
because in many ways, they kinda are.
You see, Marang's lived at this sanctuary
for basically his whole life.
Marang was only a few days old
when rescuers found him all alone with no mama rhino
to take care of him.
So they brought him back to the sanctuary,
where he would be safe until he was old enough
to live in the wild.
But when he first got there, Marang wasn't feeling safe.
He'd never been around humans before.
He was so nervous he had to wear a blindfold
just to keep from freaking out.
Waah!
But the rescuers knew what to do.
They cuddled with him,
just like a mama rhino would to soothe her cub...
and it worked!
Once he started feeling better,
Marang decided to stop hiding and start exploring,
but he was still a little nervous.
After all, he'd never really been anywhere.
"So far, this seems OK."
(sniffing) "This smells nice."
(scratching) "This feels nice."
(gasping) "Furry little rhino!"
"Do you wanna be my friend?"
Marang, she's a goat.
(bleating)
But good news: You can definitely be friends!
Marang was really loving this place and his human friends.
I mean, just look at this blanket they gave him.
In fact, he liked it here so much
he started to wonder
if maybe he should just stay here forever.
But this was a rhino sanctuary, not a rhino forever home.
Rhinos are supposed to live in the wild,
which meant Marang needed to learn how to be a wild rhino.
And it was up to his rescuers to show him how.
The first step was mud wallowing, aka mud baths:
something all rhinos need to do to keep their skin healthy.
Marang was like, "You want me to do what? Blech!"
So instead, the rescuers got buckets of mud
and rubbed it all over his body.
Marang was like, "This isn't gross at all."
"This is amazing."
But there's a lot more to being a rhino than getting muddy.
Next, it was time for his first bushwalk,
which meant going outside the sanctuary walls,
like into the wild.
Even though it was just for practice,
Marang started to feel nervous again,
but when he got outside and saw all the open space,
he started running and couldn't stop.
He was having too much fun!
So his rescuers decided he was ready
for the most important part of his rhino training:
hanging out with other rhinos.
And they had found the perfect someone
to be his first rhino friend.
Marang, meet your new big sister, Kaytie.
But Marang wasn't exactly thrilled.
In fact, he was kind of scared.
Did he really need rhino friends?
He had great human friends,
humans who fed him and petted him
and took him for bushwalks
and gave him mud baths and blankets.
His life was just fine without rhinos,
(bleating)
thank you very much.
But luckily for Marang, Kaytie didn't give up that easily.
She visited him every day for two whole weeks,
until he felt brave enough to play with her.
And once he did, Marang couldn't get enough.
He wanted to play with Kaytie all the time.
It turned out getting a big sister
was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
That is until he got another sister.
Marang, meet your new little sister, Eve.
This time Marang wasn't nervous at all
because getting two sisters was definitely the best thing
that had ever happened to him.
Well, until he got a brother too.
That's right. Marang, meet Beckham.
And just like that,
Marang was part of a big, loving rhino family.
Which is when he started to realize
that even though the sanctuary
would always be a part of him,
he really did want to be a wild rhino.
So he decided he was going to keep learning
and practicing with his brothers and sisters,
and someday, when they were ready,
they would all go back to the wild together.
But today, they're just gonna enjoy
a good, old-fashioned, no-bucket mud wallow.
It's a wild rhino thing.
(snorting)