Photos :
1. A White Rhino mother and calf in the landscape of iMfolozi Game Reserve in Natal, South Africa. It is the world’s largest repository of Rhino, home to an estimated 2,300. Rhino horn is now worth more than gold on the international market. South Africa alone has lost more than 400 rhino to illegal poaching incidents in 2011. The demand for Rhino horn is fueled by a wealthy Asian middle and upper class and used overwhelmingly as medication. (01 May 2011)
2. A female rhino in Natal, South Africa, that four months earlier survived a brutal dehorning by poachers who used a chainsaw to remove her horns and a large section of bone in this area of her skull. She survived the dehorning and has joined up with a male bull who now accompanies her. (09 November 2010)
3. A White Rhino cow is dehorned as a precautionary anti-poaching measure on a game farm outside of Klerksdorp, South Africa. A vet’s assistant holds the horns for an identity picture while the vet does a final check on the animal. (25 March 2011)
4. A Black Rhino in transit after being captured for security translocation at Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park, South Africa. The park is famous for its translocation programs that saved the Southern White Rhino from extinction. The Black Rhino remains critically endangered in Africa today, with less than 3,500 surviving. (07 November 2010)
5. A wealthy Vietnamese woman sits and grinds Rhino horn for her personal consumption in a roadside cafe in Baoloc, Vietnam. The dealer who sold her the horn sits next to her. Rhino Horn is an illegal substance in Vietnam yet both the woman and her dealer have no fear of the police, grinding the horn in a cafe in full view of the street. The woman says that ground Rhino horn has cured her kidney stones and she now takes it daily for her general health. Rhino horn is now worth more than gold on the international market. South Africa alone has lost more than 400 rhino to illegal poaching incidents in 2011. The demand for Rhino horn is fueled by a wealthy Asian middle and upper class and used overwhelmingly as medication. (06 October 2011)
[Credit : Brent Stirton/Reportage by Getty Images for National Geographic Magazine]
A group of 19 critically endangered black rhinos have been moved from South Africa’s Eastern Cape to a new range in the Limpopo province to encourage increased breeding and population growth. The location is the seventh new habitat established by the WWF’s Black Rhino Range Expansion Project.
More here: panda.org/africa/rhino/?202250
Filmed by greenrenaissance.co.za for WWF-South Africa
Rhino horn demand leads to record poaching
More rhinos have been killed in South Africa in the past 10 months than were killed in all of 2010, new poaching numbers reveal. Statistics from South Africa National Parks show that 341 animals have been lost to poaching so far in 2011, compared to a record total of 333 last year.
South Africa’s grim milestone comes on the heels of an announcement by WWF last week that rhinos have gone extinct in Vietnam. The carcass of Vietnam’s last Javan rhino was found with a gunshot wound and without its horn.
At a meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) last year, the international community concluded that the increase in rhino poaching has been caused largely by demand for horn products in Vietnam. Law enforcement efforts, while increasing, are not yet sufficient to protect rhinos from poachers or stop the smuggling and sale of their horns by organized crime rings.
In addition to being the biggest consumer of rhino horn, Vietnam is also a major market for tiger parts and other products derived from endangered species. Populations of tigers in the country are alarmingly low and could soon follow the Vietnamese Javan rhino into extinction.
Three out of five rhinos are critically endangered
Of the five species of rhinoceros, three are critically endangered. With the loss of the Vietnamese Javan rhino, there are now fewer than 50 Javan rhinos remaining, all in one national park in Indonesia.
South Africa has been the focal point of poaching because it has the largest population of rhinos in the world. Law enforcement efforts there have been scaled up resulting in more arrests, and some of those convicted are being sentenced to lengthy prison terms.
However, demand for medicinal products containing rhino horn continues to increase in Vietnam and other parts of Asia. Rhino horn has no proven ability to treat cancer and is no longer a part of the official Chinese traditional medicine pharmacopeia.
Governments must scale up their efforts
Despite an international ban on commercial trade under CITES, rhino horn continues to be smuggled illegally from Africa to Asia. Additionally, legal loopholes allowing for the export of rhino hunting trophies are being exploited in some South African provinces. Improvements are needed in the regulation of hunting permits and the management of rhino horn stock piles in the country.
In September a delegation of Vietnamese officials visited South Africa to discuss enhancing law enforcement cooperation between the two countries. Last year TRAFFIC facilitated a similar visit to Vietnam for South African authorities.
Vietnamese Javan rhino now extinct
On 25 October 2011, WWF and the International Rhino Foundation confirmed that the Javan rhinoceros in Vietnam is extinct.
The species was initially believed to be extinct in Vietnam until 1988, when a very small population was found still clinging to existance in Cat Tien National Park. Efforts were made to save this population but poor protection of its habitat ultimately led to its demise. The last Javan rhino in Vietnam was shot and killed in April 2010 and its horn removed.
It is WWF’s highest priority to save the remaining Javan rhinos in Indonesia and the other species in Vietnam – such as the tiger, Asian elephant and endemic species like the saola – that are all at risk of extinction unless law enforcement and protected area management significantly improves.
