Rhinos

There are five species of rhinos. They are all in trouble and three, in particular, are critically endangered. Heavily-armed poachers, in both Africa and Asia, are killing more and more of the hapless animals to meet an increasing demand for their horns. In fact, rhino poaching has now hit a 15-year high.

‘In my lifetime,’ says Mark, ’95 per cent of all the world’s rhinos have been killed for their horn. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were 500,000 rhinos – now there are fewer than 25,000.’

Horns from rhinos killed in East Africa tends to be smuggled into the Middle East, especially Yemen, where they are carved into ornamental dagger handles, called jambiyas. Horns from southern Africa and Asia tend to be smuggled into the Far East, where they are ground into a powder and used as a cure-all wonder drug in traditional Chinese medicine (even though there is absolutely no scientific evidence that it has any medicinal properties).

Here are the latest population figures (May 2011):

Javan rhino40-48

Sumatran rhino200

Indian rhino2,500 (534 in Nepal, the rest in India)

Black rhino4,840

White rhino - southern: 19,830 plus 750 in captivity;
northern: 4, plus another 3 in captivity

For more information on how you can help, check out the hard-working team at www.savetherhino.org