In the skies above South Africa, a surreal scene unfoldsed: a 1,300-kilogram black rhinoceros swings gently upside down from a helicopter. Legs bound to soft straps, horn pointed downward, it looks like something out of a Salvador Dalí dream. But this isn’t surreal, and it isn’t Photoshop.

This is conservation.

For the critically endangered black rhinoceros, being lifted by its feet is sometimes the only ticket to survival. What seems absurd at first glance is, in fact, the safest, fastest, and most effective way to relocate these creatures to new habitats.

A Last-Ditch Lift to Safety

They once numbered in the hundreds of thousands across Africa. By the 1990s, black rhino populations gad plummeted to fewer than 2,500 individuals. Decades of poaching for their horns, habitat fragmentation, and human encroachment nearly drove them to extinction. Today, their numbers have rebounded slightly to around 6,500, thanks to relentless conservation efforts.

Key among those efforts is translocation—the practice of moving animals from one area to another to avoid inbreeding, reduce overcrowding, and shield them from poachers. But moving a several-ton rhino is easier said than done.

Road transport can be slow, dangerous, or downright impossible in rugged terrain. That’s where helicopters come in. “Really none of this would be possible without helicopters, both in terms of darting and transferring rhinos out of inaccessible areas,” said Ursina Rusch, who manages WWF South Africa’s Black Rhino Range Expansion Project.

Since the early 2010s, conservation teams have begun airlifting rhinos from hard-to-reach locations. It started with trials in Namibia, and has since become a cornerstone of rhino conservation across Africa. In many cases, these helicopter transports are flown using Vietnam War-era UH1-H Hueys.

“Ironically, in the 80s, helicopters were used by some poachers to kill rhinos,” said Robin Radcliffe, a wildlife veterinarian at Cornell University. “The fact that helicopters are now being used to save them is a wonderful example of conservation.”

Why the Rhinos Fly Feet-First

The process begins with a dart, fired from a helicopter into the rhino’s haunch. The tranquilizer is a potent opioid, thousands of times stronger than morphine. Once the animal is sedated and immobilized, conservationists swoop in. They take blood samples, install microchips, and insert GPS trackers into the horn. Then comes the lift.

Four soft straps are tied to the rhino’s ankles and connected to a single rope beneath the helicopter. Within minutes, the animal is airborne—gently dangling upside down. To the untrained eye, it may look uncomfortable. In truth, it is uncomfortable. But research has revealed that this peculiar position is actually better for the animal than lying flat on a stretcher.

In a 2021 study published in the Journal of Wildlife Diseases, Radcliffe and colleagues measured the respiratory health of 12 immobilized rhinos suspended by their feet and compared it with those lying on their side. To their surprise, the upside-down posture resulted in slightly better oxygen levels and lower carbon dioxide in the blood.

The reason? When a rhino hangs vertically, gravity helps stretch its spine and clear its airways. By contrast, when lying on its side, abdominal pressure can compress the lungs.

Even more remarkably, the rhino’s horn acts like a tailfin—a natural stabilizer that reduces spinning midair. “The great thing about lifting the rhinos upside down by their feet is that they’re aerodynamic themselves,” Radcliffe told the BBC.

More Than Just a Ride

But the benefits of helicopter translocation go beyond respiratory function. Aerial moves are faster—typically just 10 to 30 minutes—and less traumatic than long drives over rugged terrain. Standing upright in a truck for hours, even if semi-sedated, can lead to muscle damage or airway blockage, not to mention the sheer stress.

“The rhino is constantly under supervision of experienced veterinarians and pilots, who can tell if the rhino is comfortable or straining,” said Rusch.

And translocation helps ensure genetic diversity. In fenced reserves, where rhino movement is limited, inbreeding becomes a real threat. “If we don’t translocate rhinos and create new populations, they will inbreed enough that they crash, or run out of resources and stop breeding,” Rusch explained.

These moves have already helped seed new rhino populations across 18 different project sites in South Africa. WWF’s expansion project now shelters over 400 rhinos—15% of the country’s total.

And the rhinos? They are thriving! “They get released on the other side, and then you get to watch these populations grow—from first to second to third-generation offspring,” said Rusch.

A Future in Flight

While most rhinos are still moved by road, airlifting is gaining traction, especially in places like Namibia’s Kunene region, where roads simply don’t exist. The technique has even earned a satirical nod from the scientific community. In 2021, Radcliffe’s team won an Ig Nobel Prize—given to research that “first makes people laugh, then makes them think”—for their work proving that upside-down rhinos breathe just fine.

Looking ahead, Radcliffe and his collaborators hope to bring this method to Indonesia, where the even rarer Sumatran rhino is facing extinction. The approach is also being adapted for other large animals, like elephants and antelopes.

Of course, conservation isn’t without cost. Helicopters are loud, fuel-hungry machines. But Radcliffe argues the trade-off is worth it.

“In a perfect world we’d have a zero-carbon footprint,” he said. “But we, as humans, are obligated to make a concerted effort to save species like the rhinoceros. They are in serious decline, not because of normal ecological processes, but because of our own actions.”