When rescuers first found her, the four-week-old rhino calf was standing alone beside her mother’s lifeless body. The poachers had taken everything — her mother’s horns, her life — and left the baby wounded and orphaned in the harsh South African bush.
Tiny, bleeding, and terrified, the calf had somehow survived three stab wounds to her back.
The team from The Rhino Orphanage (TRO) in Limpopo rushed to her aid.
They named her J’aime, which means “I love” in French — a tribute to another rhino recently poached in France. The name seemed fitting, because what J’aime needed most to survive wasn’t just medicine or milk — it was love.
At first, the caretakers weren’t sure if she would make it. She was small, shaken, and weak from trauma. But when they offered her a bottle, something remarkable happened — J’aime began to drink.
Slowly at first, then greedily, as if she knew that this milk meant safety, warmth, and a new beginning.
“She talks to us when she’s hungry,” said Jamie Traynor, the manager at TRO.
“She whines and fusses until she gets her milk.” And if her caretakers are too slow? “My favorite thing about her,” Traynor said with a smile, “is that she nibbles on my arm at night when she’s hungry and wants milk.”
J’aime’s affection doesn’t stop there. She loves to cuddle — pressing her massive little body as close as she can to her caregivers, often falling asleep against them. To make her feel safe, the staff take turns sleeping beside her through the night.
It’s a small act of comfort for a baby who’s already seen too much loss.
For now, J’aime is the tiniest rhino at the orphanage, too young to join the others. But her feet — adorably oversized for her small frame — hint at the strong, beautiful creature she’ll become.
“They’re too big for her body,” Traynor laughed. “When she runs, all you see are her big feet.”
Each day, J’aime grows stronger. Her wounds have healed, her fear has faded, and her personality has begun to shine. She’s playful, curious, and fiercely attached to the people who saved her life.
If all goes well, when she turns three, J’aime will be ready to return to the wild — to the freedom her mother never got to see again.
“Her future looks good,” Traynor said. “We’ll make sure she gets the peaceful life she deserves — away from poachers, where she can just be a rhino.”
From tragedy came hope — from pain, a lesson in love. And for a tiny rhino named J’aime, who nibbles on arms for milk and sleeps beside her humans, love truly became her second chance at life.
