By Johnson Siamachira
Harare (New Ziana) – Thanks to vigorous protection efforts and range expansion, the African black rhino population has more than doubled since the mid-1990s, says the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
According to the global conservation organization, black rhino populations across Africa continue to increase.
This is in spite of persistent challenges of poaching for rhino horns, involvement of organized crime syndicates in hunting and trafficking of horns, as well as habitat availability for the endangered animals.
“What we can see looking back at the last 25 years is that sustained conservation efforts do pay off,” says Jo Shaw, Africa Rhino Lead for the WWF network.
Relentless hunting by European settlers in the 1900s saw rhino numbers and distribution quickly decline. The southern white rhino particularly, suffered so badly from colonization that, by the late 19th century, its population was reduced to just perhaps 20 animals in what became Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park in KwaZulu Natal in South Africa.
Added to hunting and habitat loss, a wave of poaching due to illegal trade in rhino horn peaked in the 1960s-1980s, to black markets in Asia. As a result, black rhino numbers declined by a staggering 96 per cent between 1970 and 1992.
In 1997, there were 8,466 white rhinos and 2,599 black rhinos remaining in the wild. According to the World Conservation Union, the most recent continental survey recorded that there are 15,942 white rhinos and 6,195 of the more endangered black rhinos. This was in part due to long-term efforts to actively expand their habitat range and numbers across the continent.
The most distinguishing feature of the herbivorous animal, its horn – a compact mass of agglutinated hair- has made the rhino a most sought-after-animal.
Rhino horn is a prized ingredient for traditional Chinese medicine. Its supposedly fever reducing qualities when taken in powder form bring it a fabulous price on the international market today.
Responding to the crisis, both species of African rhino were listed in 1977 in Appendix 1 of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which prohibited all international trade of rhino parts and products.
But despite this international legal protection, the black rhino population dipped to its lowest point of 2,400 in 1995.
As a result of concerted biological management and protection efforts, black rhino numbers are now increasing. However, poaching still occurs and some populations remain very small and threatened. Very few African rhinos now survive outside of protected areas and sanctuaries.
Said Shaw: “Transnational organized crime networks targeting large conservation areas and important rhino populations across Southern Africa remain a serious concern.”
Today, most of Africa’s black rhinos are found in South Africa, Namibia, Kenya and Zimbabwe, where the species’ decline has been reduced through effective monitoring management, increased security and the engagement and commitment of the governments. Zimbabwe, Kenya and Namibia have undertaken extensive dehorning projects with mixed results.
In Zimbabwe, the Lowveld Rhino Trust (LRT) started working in the south-eastern part of the country to protect and conserve rhinos in 1992. The LRT is a Zimbabwean-registered trust which acts as the local partner of the USA-based International Rhino Foundation in implementing rhino conservation activities in the Lowveld region. At the start of 1992, the Lowveld held about 37 black and 17 white rhinos in its conservancies.
At the end of 2022, there were 600 black rhinos and 380 white rhinos in the Lowveld. These included rhinos at Malilangwe Conservancy which were successfully built up from rhinos imported from South Africa. The LRT initially translocated 49 black rhinos into Bubiana and Save Valley conservancies from other parts of Zimbabwe to add to the small numbers of rhinos already there. This was vital work to ensure that the genetic base for these populations was large enough to ensure good population health. Also, the LRT translocated white rhinos into the conservancies.
These rhino populations are monitored at the level of individual identification so every animal is ear-notched with a unique numbering pattern and checked regularly by skilled trackers to confirm the rhino’s location and health.
The Lowveld rhino population has since grown rapidly, achieving some of the highest growth rates ever recorded for the species, and both surpassed the total of 100 black rhinos in the early 2000s. Since then, the LRT has translocated 310 rhinos, removing them from high-risk areas or in some cases, moving them for management purposes. These efforts have reduced the number of rhinos lost to poaching and established new habitats such as the Bubye Valley Conservancy.
The LRT works with conservancies that undertake all the security and land management responsibilities required to sustain these important rhino populations. LRT also coordinates with Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority and other rhino conservation organizations in the Lowveld, especially the Malilangwe Conservation Trust and the Gonarezhou Conservation Trust.
“Through this collaboration, a new population of black rhinos was established in Gonarezhou National Park in 2021 after many years of hard conservation effort there,” says LRT director, Raoul du Toit,
LRT’s work is currently concentrated in Bubye Valley Conservancy, involving rhino monitoring and management interventions (drug-dartings, translocations, veterinary treatments), while the burden of security and general area conservation (water provision, fencing) is shouldered by this conservancy.
With about 1,000 animals, Zimbabwe has the fourth-largest population of rhinos in the world, after South Africa, Namibia and Kenya. The country is home to 665 black rhinos and 455 white rhinos.
In South Africa, a Black Rhino Range Expansion project (BRREP) was established in KwaZulu-Natal province in 2003 to increase the numbers of black rhinos across the sites. The majority of rhinos have been translocated to sites, including community-owned land, making local communities real stakeholders in rhino conservation.
Says project head, Jacques Flamand: “It’ s great to see nearly two decades of hard work on behalf of black rhino paying off.”
South Africa houses 40 per cent of the total black rhino population in the world. There are some black rhinos in the region spread between Cameroon and Kenya.
But there is no room for complacency.
Conservationists believe that unless more serious efforts are stepped up at national and international levels, there is a danger of this unique species becoming merely a beast of splendiferous tales of the past.
While rhino poaching statistics have decreased for the Kruger National Park, the numbers of rhinos poached increased markedly in KwaZulu-Natal.
New Ziana
