White rhinos for sale, one careful owner: tycoon looks for a billionaire to buy his conservation ranch

Wanted: an animal-loving billionaire who might consider buying 1,993 threatened white rhinos instead of a new superyacht or a Picasso, or a Picasso onboard a superyacht.

John Hume, a South African multimillionaire who started a rhino breeding project with about 200 animals 30 years ago, is selling all the rhinos and the 8,500-hectare (21,000 acres) conservation ranch where they live in what must rank as one of the most unusual ever online auctions.

Bids for the farm, 100 miles south-east of Johannesburg, start at $10m (£8m) and close at 5pm on Monday 1 May – international save the rhino day. Also included alongside the rhinos – which make up about 10% of the world’s total rhino population – are 213 buffaloes, five hippos, seven zebras and 11 giraffes.

Hume, 81, who made his fortune building timeshare resorts, said he was selling up after spending $150m on the project and he could no longer continue to support the rhinos.

“I’ve used all my life savings spending on that population of rhinos for 30 years. And I finally ran out of money,” he said. “I’m hoping that there is a billionaire that would rather save the population of rhinos from extinction than own a superyacht.”

His daughter-in-law Tammy Hume said Hume called an emergency family meeting last year when he realised he would soon no longer be able to meet the £8,000-a-day cost of securing and feeding the rhinos. The farm employs about 100 people, including vets, rangers and security guards to protect the animals from poachers. There is also a helicopter for air patrols.

Hume said selling the Platinum Rhino Project was the only option, after failing to overturn a global ban on selling rhino horn to fund the farm. The horn, which is used as an ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine, is said to be more valuable, by weight, in the hidden economy than elephant ivory, cocaine or gold.

The farm has a licence to trim rhino horns, which it claims helps protect them as it makes the animals less of a target for poachers. The Humes said the trimmed rhino horn is DNA-profiled, microchipped and kept in a secure location – and not sold.

Hume said he fell in love with rhinos after retiring to a small ranch in the countryside with a small crash of rhinos. “I’m sympathetic and emotional. Rhinos are underdogs. They stand the least chance of surviving poaching,” he told the Daily Maverick. “It’s impossible to say what these 2,000 rhinos have cost me. Billions. I was rich then. And now I’m not.”

Hume said his “ideal buyer is a person or foundation with a passion for conserving rhinos and the means to keep the breeding project going”.

He added: “With 200 rhinos born a year, the project has the power to make a significant difference and bolster declining rhino populations on the African continent.”

Tammy Hume said the family had spoken to several “high net worth individuals” who had expressed interest in buying the farm as a philanthropic gift to conservation efforts. They have also been in discussions with ecological foundations and zoos across the world.

She had hoped to fund future conservation work by releasing 100 of the rhinos into the wild but could not find a charity or philanthropist to fund the effort. “Trimming [horns], we understand that there is enormous concern about but it was just one idea of how to generate an income,” she said. “Another was to create a nature market from rewilding rhinos … but no one was willing to pay for it.”

As of Friday no bids had been placed but Hume said several people had registered for the auction and paid a 90,000 rand (£4,000) registration fee.

“We hope the auction has set off alarm bells around the world, that we can’t continue to look after the rhinos financially, and these animals need a new saviour.”

Almost all (98.8%) of the southern white rhinos occur in only four countries: South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Kenya. They were, according to the WWF, thought to be extinct in the late 19th century, but in 1895 a small population of fewer than 100 individuals was discovered in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. After more than a century of protection and management, they are now classified as “near threatened” and about 18,000 animals exist in protected areas and private game reserves. They are the only one of the five rhino species that are not endangered.

A spokesperson for the WWF said: “[We] are working with rhino conservation experts to better understand the current and future potential conservation contribution of the white rhino at Platinum Rhino and the role of captive breeding operations in white rhino conservation. Although the numbers of rhinos that have been bred at Platinum Rhino represent a notable percentage of white rhinos left in the world, it is unfortunately increasingly the case in rhino conservation that our challenge is not a shortage of rhinos but a shortage of conservation areas with safe suitable rhino habitat.”