The 17,500-acre reserve, 22 km north of Nyeri Town, plays a major part in the protection and breeding black rhinos in Kenya.
[1][2] The rhino is a member of the 'Big-Five', which are a key tourist attraction; other wildlife include the buffalo, zebra, giraffe and plains game such as eland, oryx, impala, waterbuck, Thompson's gazelle and warthog.
[3] Originally a cattle ranch, Solio Game Reserve was formed as part of a conservation effort initiated by the owners, The Parfet Family.
[5] This sharp decline was caused by poaching in all areas during the 1970s and the early 1980s, both inside and outside of the national parks and reserves, with few controls and little enforcement.
[6] One outcome of the intensive killing was to leave small remnant populations, sometimes just a single individual, scattered across the country with no hope of long-term survival and often endangering nearby human settlements while still under threat from poaching.
With a commitment to conservation, a 13,500 acre area of the ranch had already been fenced off to protect indigenous wildlife and allow them to live their natural life without interference or threat from humans.
With excellent habitat and securely hidden from view, this new group of rhinos bred and prospered, and the reserve had to be extended to 17,000 acres in 1991.
In the meantime other areas in Kenya in national parks and private ranches were made sufficiently secure to take in rhinos, and Solio became the prime founder source for many populations.
However, at the start of 2000 the reserve became a major target for professional poachers and in a five-year period nine black rhinos were either shot or caught in snares.
Surplus rhinos from both private land and national parks and reserves were to continue being used to complete the stocking of new sanctuaries in both sectors.
Kenya Wildlife Service reported that there was an urgent need to maintain a sustainable and high annual growth rate in population to develop and conserve a genetically viable population of black rhinos of the East African race or subspecies (diceros bicornis michaeli) in their natural habitats in Kenya.
A large part of the park consists of bush, making it difficult to observe and track the rhino populations.
From the systematically collected data, they concluded that the park contained about 87 rhino, 46 males, 38 females and 3 calves of unknown sex.
After the trans-location the population profile had changed to During 2010 the Kenya Wildlife Service planned to move 600 buffaloes from Solio Ranch to the Aberdare National Park and other locations.
In 2009 the NGO, Moving Mountains, started a strategic program to provide housing and schools for the settlers, and since the Kenyan Government has also assisted.
Lady Lucy Kibaki assisted by Mathira member of parliament Ephraim Maina Mwangi approached Central Provincial Commissioner, Jaspher Rugut to find suitable land for the resettlement of these squatters.