topic: Black Rhino

topic: Black Rhino

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Not just polar bears — climate change could push African rhinos to extinction
- New research finds climate change threatens black and white African rhinos by making their current habitats hotter, drier and less hospitable.
- Rhinos, unable to sweat, rely on shade, water and food sources that are becoming scarcer due to rising temperatures and arid landscapes.
- The study reveals that hotter periods will also likely force rhinos into areas with more humans, raising the risk of conflicts and compounding threats like poaching.
- Experts say strong global climate change mitigation efforts paired with on-the-ground adaptation tactics, such as shade-tree planting, corridor creation and misting stations, would give rhinos a fighting chance.

Black rhinos moved to Kenya’s Loisaba Conservancy as species recovers
- Twenty-one critically endangered black rhinos are settling into their new home at Loisaba Conservancy in northern Kenya.
- The translocations were prompted by the fact that Kenya’s 16 black rhino sanctuaries are running out of space — a remarkable turnaround from rampant poaching in the 1970s and ’80s that reduced the country’s rhino population from 20,000 to fewer than 300.
- The translocated animals, 10 bulls and 11 cows, arrived at Loisaba from Nairobi National Park, Ol Pejeta Conservancy, and Lewa Wildlife Conservancy.
- The animals were carefully moved over a period of three weeks and released into a fenced sanctuary covering nearly half the conservancy, marking the first time the species has been present at Loisaba since 1976.

Namibian community protects its rhinos from poaching but could lose them to mining
- After years of decline, rhino poaching figures increased in Namibia in 2022, with the biggest losses occurring in Etosha National Park
- No rhinos were killed on communal land, yet one such successful conservancy is seeing its rhinos driven away by blasting and other activity at a copper mine that the environment minister approved in the area.
- The conservancy says the displacement of the resident black rhinos threatens the conservation program and revenue from tourism, and is planning to sue the environment minister.
- The //Huab Conservancy’s dispute highlights weaknesses in the ministry’s exercise of environmental regulation.

Bull run: South Africa marks latest rhino relocation to boost populations
- Four black rhinos were translocated to the Bonamanzi Game Reserve in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province in April, part of wider efforts to repopulate the species’ former range and boost their gene pool.
- Black rhino populations fell from nearly 40,000 in the 1970s to just 2,400 in the early ’90s, due to poaching driven by strong demand for rhino horn in Asia and civil strife in and the flow of weapons across Southern Africa.
- More effective protection and measures to support population growth have helped black rhino populations rise to around 5,600 today.
- Translocation helps reestablish rhino populations in parts of their former range where they’ve been extirpated as well as allowing existing populations to continue to breed.

Translocation brings white rhinos to Rwanda, a new land for an old species
- On Nov. 29, 30 white rhinos were introduced to Akagera National Park in Rwanda from a private game reserve in South Africa.
- The relocation is aimed at establishing the species in a new range state and ensuring its survival into the future.
- Akagera National Park has not had a single high-value animal poached for the past 11 years, and has become a sanctuary for other translocated species such as lions and black rhinos, according to the NGO African Parks, which helps to manage Akagera.
- White rhinos are considered a near threatened species that under continual threat from poaching incidents.

‘A leap of faith’: Q&A with Robin Radcliffe on airlifting rhinos upside down
- Translocation of animals is not new; what is new is hanging them upside down by their feet under a helicopter, a method pioneered by the African nation of Namibia to transport endangered rhinos.
- A team of researchers recently won an Ig Nobel, a satirical take on the prestigious Nobel prizes that celebrate science at its quirky best, for studying how rhinos fare when transported in this manner.
- Mongabay spoke to Robin Radcliffe, a veterinarian at Cornell University and lead author of a new paper on aerial transportation of rhinos about the importance of doing this work.

Low genetic diversity is part of rhinos’ long-term history, study says
- A new study that reconstructs the rhino family tree by analyzing the genomes of all five living rhino species and three extinct species has found that low genetic diversity is part of rhinos’ long-term history.
- The study also found evidence to support the geographic hypothesis of rhino evolution, which places the two African species in a separate group from the three Asian species.
- However, genetic diversity is lowest and inbreeding highest in present-day rhinos, suggesting that recent human-driven population declines have impacted rhino genetics.
- Nonetheless, the study says rhinos appear to have adapted well to low genetic diversity and small populations sizes and recommends conservation efforts focus on increasing rhino numbers.

On World Rhino Day, looking back on an eventful year
- September 22 marks World Rhino Day, a global event established to celebrate the world’s five rhinoceros species, and to reflect on the challenges facing them.
- The year that has elapsed since World Rhino Day 2018 has been a eventful one for rhino conservation.
- Here, we look back at Mongabay’s coverage of some of the biggest stories from both Africa and Asia.

New film details wrenching impact of illegal rhino horn trade on families
- A new short film, titled Sides of a Horn, looks at the impacts of the illegal trade of rhino horn on a community in South Africa.
- The 17-minute film follows two brothers-in-law, one who is a wildlife ranger and another who contemplates poaching as a way to pay for his ailing wife’s medical care.
- A trip to South Africa in 2016 inspired British filmmaker Toby Wosskow to write and direct the short feature, which was publicly released June 25.

Better than sex? For hard-to-breed rhinos, technology strives for a solution
- Assisted reproductive technologies (ART) are being developed to improve the outcomes of captive-breeding programs for rhinos.
- If successful, these efforts could help create a self-sustaining reserve population and help diversify the gene pool of wild populations.
- ARTs have been successfully used in both humans and livestock since the 1970s, but have not been as effective in wildlife species such as rhinos.
- Experts say they believe ART could play an important role in rhino conservation, but caution that these technologies are only one part of the solution.

Four of six black rhinos translocated to Chad are now dead
- Four of the six black rhinos reintroduced to Chad’s Zakouma National Park from South Africa in May are now dead, authorities say.
- Two of the rhinos were found dead recently, following from the deaths of two other rhinos in October.
- Authorities say the rhinos were not poached, and suggest they may have been having trouble adapting to their new habitat. More tests will be needed to determine the cause of death.
- The deaths in Zakouma come just months after 11 black rhinos died within days of being reintroduced into Kenya’s Tsavo East National Park in July.

Two black rhinos found dead in Chad after move from South Africa
- Two of the six black rhinos that were flown from South Africa to Zakouma National Park in Chad in May this year have died.
- The two rhinos, a male and a female, were not poached, African Parks said, but the exact cause of death is not yet known.
- The translocation of the six rhinos marked the return of critically endangered black rhinos to Chad after nearly 50 years of the species’ absence.
- The four surviving rhinos are still alive and are being closely monitored, African Parks said.

$25m in funding to help African gov’ts prosecute poachers, traffickers
- The African Wildlife Foundation has pledged $25 million to projects aimed at combating the illegal wildlife trade across the continent over the next four years.
- The Nairobi-based NGO invests in outfitting wildlife rangers, training sniffer dogs to detect illicit shipments, and community-based development.
- AWF president Kaddu Sebunya emphasized the need to invest in homegrown solutions to the crisis when he announced the funding at the Illegal Wildlife Trade conference, held Oct. 11-12 in London.

10 of 11 black rhinos now dead after relocation attempt in Kenya takes tragic turn
- Last month, officials with the Kenya Wildlife Service attempted to move 11 endangered black rhinos from two national parks, Nairobi and Lake Nakuru, to a third, Tsavo East. Nine of them died shortly after arriving in their new home from what an autopsy has shown to be salt poisoning.
- Today, the Kenyan government announced that a tenth rhino has died and that the eleventh — now the sole survivor of the translocation operation — was attacked by lions yesterday and is clinging to life.
- The black rhinoceros is a Critically Endangered species, according to the IUCN Red List. Only about 5,500 individuals are believed to survive in the wild today, 750 of them in Kenya.

Black rhinos return to Zakouma National Park in Chad
- The NGO African Parks and its partners in South Africa and Chad reintroduced six black rhinos to Zakouma National Park on May 4.
- Chad’s oldest national park had not had rhinos since the early 1970s, when they were wiped out by hunting.
- After a brief acclimation period in transitional bomas, or enclosures, the rhinos will be released into a protected sanctuary in the park.
- Around 5,000 black rhinos remain on the African continent, and poaching for their horns, used in traditional Asian medicine, continues to be a threat to their survival as a species.

Rhino DNA database helps officials nab poachers and traffickers
- A DNA-based system is helping authorities prosecute and convict poachers and rhino horn traffickers in Africa.
- RhODIS, as the system is called, is built on a foundational database with genetic information from nearly 4,000 individual rhinos.
- By comparing the frequencies of alleles in confiscated horn and horn products with those in tissue from a poached animal, investigators can then come up with a probable match for where that horn came from.
- So far, RhODIS has been instrumental in nine convictions in East and Southern Africa.

Rhino poacher sentenced to 18 years in prison
- A court in Malawi has convicted and sentenced a rhino poacher to 18 years in prison for killing an adult female black rhinoceros.
- Two of his accomplices were also handed sentences of ten and eight years each.
- The recent 18-year sentence might serve as a deterrent to would-be poachers, some experts say.

Black rhinos in Tanzania now monitored via sensors implanted directly in their horns
- In a first for the species, several black rhinos in Tanzania’s Mkomazi National Park have had small, networked sensors embedded directly in their horns in order to allow park rangers to monitor the animals much more closely than in the past.
- The sensors make use of LoRaWAN technology (which stands for “Long Range Wide Area Network”), designed to allow low-powered devices, like sensors in rhino horns, to communicate with Internet-connected devices, like computers in a ranger station, over long-range wireless networks.
- LoRaWAN is one of several technologies currently being put to use for real-time monitoring of wildlife. The network in Tanzania’s Mkomazi National Park, where the sensors were recently deployed, covers the entire rhino sanctuary in the park.

Traffickers find new ways to smuggle rhino horn out of Africa
- Criminal networks of Chinese origin operating in southern Africa have started processing rhino horn into jewelry and other trinkets before smuggling it out of the continent, reports wildlife trade monitoring network Traffic.
- A shift from smuggling whole horns to jewelry complicates law enforcement efforts, and suggests there is a growing demand for luxury items made from rhino horn.
- New tactics and trade routes underscore how difficult it is for authorities to combat global trafficking networks.

Rhino horn on the auction block in South Africa
- The trade in rhino horn has only recently become legal in South Africa again, after an April 2017 decision reversed a 2009 moratorium.
- Since the ban went into effect, rhino deaths at the hands of poachers in South Africa are nearly 10 times what they were, leading some private rhino breeders to argue that international trade should be legalized to meet the demand for horn sustainably.
- Conservation groups are concerned that a legal trade would neither satisfy the market’s demand for rhino horn nor stem poaching.

Investigation finds ‘thriving’ rhino horn trade in Asia
- Over 11 months, EAL investigators posed as potential buyers and identified 55 ‘persons of interest’ involved in the trade of rhino horn.
- The group mapped out the routes by which rhino horn – valued at tens of thousands of dollars per kilogram – arrives in China.
- Recorded conversations during the investigation allude to the fact that dealers and traders understand that rhinos face the threat of extinction.

When it comes to rhino conservation, Asia and Africa can learn a lot from each other
- Despite its proximity to Asian markets for trafficked rhino horn, Nepal has lost only four rhinos to poaching since 2011.
- Experts credit this success to a combination of top-down enforcement and efforts to involve the community in conservation.
- Protected areas in Africa that have collaborated with area residents have shown promising results, suggesting lessons from Nepal can be successfully applied elsewhere.
- In turn, conservationists say Nepal can benefit from African countries’ expertise in promoting wildlife tourism, and alternate models of benefit sharing.

Wildlife ecologist killed in Rwandan national park by recently translocated rhino
- “It is with utmost regret that I inform you that Krisztián Gyöngyi was killed this morning by a rhinoceros in Akagera National Park in Rwanda while out tracking animals in the park,” Peter Fearnhead, CEO of the non-profit conservation organization African Parks, announced in a statement.
- According to Fearnhead, Gyöngyi was a rhino specialist who had more than five years of experience monitoring and conserving rhinos in Majete Wildlife Reserve and Liwonde National Park, both in Malawi.
- In a joint initiative of the Rwandan government and African Parks, which employs more than 600 rangers and manages 10 national parks and protected areas in seven countries, 18 Eastern black rhinos were airlifted from South Africa to Akagera National Park.

New York detective work saves rhinos in South Africa (commentary)
- The slaughter of rhinos is due to demand for the very appendage that distinguishes a rhino from other creatures – its horn. Rhino horn has long been used in Asian traditional medicine, but the recent surge in the illegal horn market in countries like Vietnam and China has sent the price of horn skyrocketing to upwards of $65,000 (USD) per kilogram – more than the price of gold.
- Southeast Asia isn’t the only market for smuggled rhino horns. In New York City, wildlife law enforcement officers and port authority agents are finding rhino horn in shipping containers and commercial luggage destined for markets in the United States and beyond.
- One of the major anti-poaching operations funded by the Wild Tomorrow Fund with money from court-ordered donations by sellers of illegal ivory busted in New York City is the dehorning of a black rhino population at Phinda Private Game Reserve.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

South Africa makes it legal to sell rhino horns
- Commercial rhino breeders have welcomed the decision, arguing that an open, legal trade in rhino horns will end the poaching of rhinos and will help pay for their protection.
- However, several conservationists argue that there is no domestic market for rhino horns within South Africa and that a legal domestic trade would only worsen rhino poaching in the country.
- The Environment Affairs Minister said that all domestic trade in rhino horn would be subject to obtaining the relevant permits and to applicable provincial legislation being obtained.

A Czech zoo is dehorning its rhinos
- The dehorning is in response to an incident in Paris earlier this month, in which poachers broke into a zoo near the city, shot dead a 4-year-old male white rhino, and hacked off one of its horns.
- The Dvůr Králove Zoo, home to 21 rhinos, sawed the horns off its first rhino on March 20.
- The authorities said that the horns will be stored in a “safe place” outside the zoo.

Reducing Asia’s hunger for rhino horn
- In 2015, the most recent full year for which data is available, more than 1,350 rhinos were killed for their horns in Africa and Asia.
- The vast majority of rhino horn is bound for destinations outside of the source country, meaning that conservationists in places like South Africa or India can do little to fight demand.
- Demand reduction efforts currently center on China and Vietnam, the primary destinations for poached rhino horn.
- Effective demand reduction campaigns require research into consumer behavior and careful targeting of messages.

Zimbabwe is dehorning its rhinos to curb poaching
- In 2015, at least 50 rhinos were killed in Zimbabwe by poachers.
- Zimbabwe has been using dehorning as a policy to protect its rhinos against poaching since the 1990s.
- Dehorning, used in conjunction with intensive paramilitary protection, can help curb poaching, conservationist says.

South Africa drops proposal to legalize international trade in rhino horn
- Conservationists had criticized South Africa’s plans to submit a proposal to legalize trade in rhino horn as misguided, arguing that it would put Africa’s threatened rhino populations at further risk.
- 2015 was the deadliest year yet for rhinos in Africa, with at least 1,305 animals killed by poachers.
- A number of rhino conservation measures were agreed to in January at the 66th meeting of the CITES Standing Committee.

2015 was the worst year on record for rhino poaching in Africa
- South Africa, ground zero of rhino poaching in Africa, today reported a slight drop in the number of animals killed last year, but that decrease was more than offset by significant increases in neighboring countries.
- In Zimbabwe, poachers killed 12 rhinos in 2014 and a widely reported total of “at least 50” in 2015, while rhino deaths in Namibia also rose sharply, from 24 in 2014 to 80 last year.
- A number of rhino conservation measures were agreed to last week at the 66th Standing Committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

Will community management help save the black rhino from extinction? (Photos)
- Black rhinos have declined 90 percent in three generations, and are listed as Critically Endangered.
- The rhinos were moved from Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, which has a large rhino population but limited resources.
- Conservationists say the move will benefit the rhinos, as well as local communities by providing jobs and education opportunities.

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