ADDO - Six critically endangered black rhinos were en route from South Africa to Chad on Thursday in a pioneering project to re-introduce the animals to a country where they were wiped out by poaching nearly 50 years ago. The wild black rhinos were loaded onto a plane at Port Elizabeth airport on the South African coast in a 3,000-mile (4,800-kilometre) journey to Chad’s Zakouma National Park. After the translocation, which took two years of planning, the rhinos will be released into small enclosures before being allowed to roam freely through the vast park. Security has been strengthened at Zakouma, in the south of Chad, with officials saying that poaching has been “practically eliminated” thanks to African Parks, an international conservation group. “All too often, headlines on rhinos are about their demise as they teeter on the brink of extinction,” said African Parks chief Peter Fearnhead. “However, today we are participating in an historic event and peering into a brighter future for this species which has persisted on this planet for millions of years.” The four females and two males were taken by road from the Addo park in South Africa to the airport in special ventilated crates that were loaded into the plane by a crane. Teams of vets monitored the animals’ stress levels.