Talk:Northern white rhinoceros

Conservation Status

The article states there are no existing in the wild, yet the status is still set to critically endangered, as opposed to EW.

+1 to this. Would someone please correct this issue? The template used in the infobox is fairly complex. Chicken-7 ^talk 06:39, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

The status depends on the issuing authority, and we follow the IUCN - it takes time for them to re-evaluate the status, but they always explain why do they keep it as stated, even if it appears unreasonable. Materialscientist (talk) 23:09, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

A Guardian article calls the rhino "functionally extinct" and a "zombie species". These are nice phrases and could be good here.Malick78 (talk) 18:27, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Extinction status is always going to be slightly behind. I always understood the status on the right to be the IUCN status. Simply because the wild population has not been spotted for a few years does not mean they are indeed extinct. The status should be left to reflect the IUCN classification.

Phrases from news articles like "functionally extinct" and "zombie species" are not appropriate for the standard of Wikipedia. However, they could be incorporated in ways like: 'Despair over the poor captive breeding and population crash have led some to describe the Northern White Rhino as being a 'functionally extinct' 'zombie specie'." Of course the context of the article would have to be checked to make sure the inclusion was representative of both the article and representing a significant opinion (i.e. not just news spin).

Reference: http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/20/world/africa/kenya-northern-white-rhino/ "Countdown to extinction: Only 6 northern white rhinos left on Earth" (2014) CNN] Page has been updated.128.170.224.13 (talk) 13:25, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

If a species (any, including northern white rhinoceros) is evaluated by IUCN, we follow them. In other words, until IUCN changes their status here, it should not be changed in the article. There are numerous reasons for that. Materialscientist (talk) 13:31, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

At least the first paragraph entry stating there are three left should be corrected based on the CNN article. That's not sourced by IUCN. 128.170.224.13 (talk) 13:37, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Number of surviving animals

• From :livescience.com/52889-nola-northern-white-rhino-dies.html

" The four remaining northern white rhinos that roamed the wild of the Democratic Republic of Congo as recently as 2007 are now presumed dead, which means there are no known members of the species still living in the wild, according to the Ol Pejeta Conservancy. Of the three endangered rhinos that remain, two are female and one is male."November 23, 2015

• There are none in the Wild. Status should be changed. Telecine Guy 18:09, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

I just received an email from the san diego zoo as a member that indicates that the number of living animals is 6, not 4: 3 in a preserve in Kenya, 1 in Dvur, and 2 in San Diego. This agrees with other articles about the recent death of #7. Not being a rhino expert, I do not feel comfortable editing the actual document, but hope this post will trigger someone who knows better to update it. Warsky (talk) 17:28, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

To echo and elaborate on the comment above, the following article is one of many stating that, following the death of Suni this week, there are only six of this subspecies left now. Since it has been so widely covered by the media I feel it is very important to reflect this week's sad loss in the opening part of the article, not just for the sake of keeping the facts up to date, but also because the article states early on that they are hoping the rhino's in the reserves will successfully mate, but since the death was of the most viable breeding male, and since the only other surviving male has been claimed in many other articles to be probably too old to mate now, it is probably fair to reflect the very likely failure of this original hope, and the likely extinction of the subspecies in the nearish future. Unfortunately this wikipedia page appears to have no edit buttons, so I was unable to edit it myself. http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/20/world/africa/kenya-northern-white-rhino/index.html?sr=fb102014rhino1pStoryLink 149.254.180.114 (talk) 22:46, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

IRF says 5-10 animals remain in the wild but IUCN says only four could be located. This article reports both, giveing priority to the IRF numbers. Which is the better estimate and why? How recently was the IRF population estimate updated and how do they justify the numbers in excess of what was actually found in the latest survey? Verbivorous 03:04, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

It was an aerial survey done over a hostile country. I suppose they are assuming that they missed some. For what it's worth, the reason the translocation from Garamba hasn't occurred yet is because the DRC backed out. I don't think there will be any news articles about that, but it's common knowledge in the rhino community (ie, not citable here). Sheep81 17:24, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Since the two females at the San Diego Wild Animal Park are incapable of reproducing, I was thinking they could transport the male Rhino to the Czech zoo, or possibly bring the younger females from the Czech Republic to San Diego. If we're lucky this might be able to sustain the species for another generation or so.

I've also noticed one of the rhinos is the offspring of both Northern and Southern whites. If it's not possible to maintain the Northern subspecies, maybe we could at least keep their genes in existence through cross-breeding--Robert Treat (talk) 17:16, 6 August 2008 (UTC).

The article contradicts isteslf, the intro section states that there are 8 captive Northern White Rhinos and below it says that 9 are in captivity it is stated that this is a hybrid but the distinction is made unclear 71.112.4.245 (talk) 02:56, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I asked at the Dvůr Králové Zoo, and they e-mailed me that of their "SIX Norhtern ones (2.4) 4 or 5 are still capable of reproducing". I will try to ask at San Diego asap what is the situation there. --HTO (talk) 16:15, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Well than one of their males must have died. I will try to find which one (does anyone know already?). The situation in San Diego is that one female, named Nadi, died in 2007. Thus the possible 6 from the Czech Republic and now 2 in the United States make the total captive number at 8 as it says in the beginning of the article. More sadly is that these 8 may be the only ones left as surveys in 2008 failed to find any surviving wild ones. Peter Maas\^talk 10:31, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I found it. The male Saut died in August 2006. See: [1]. Peter Maas\^talk 14:35, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

The north/south hybrid female Nasi died in 2008 "Uhynula v roce 2008".

The article is contradicting itself slightly again, though I'm guessing it's the wording. As of now, it says that there are 7 left in captivity, then goes on to say that 6 are in the Czech Republic and 2 others in the San Diego Zoo, which adds up to 8. It clarifies only later that one of them died. I'll just rearrange the sentences a little bit to make it clearer. Please correct if I mess anything up. Marchfur (talk) 14:23, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

I can find no source that says that Nabire's father was Arthur. This source [2] actually claims that Arthur is the father of Nasi, who is the hybrid, not Nabire, and Nabire is not a hybrid, being the daughter of Sudan and Nasima. When I went to the zoo there, they clearly labeled Nabire's pen as "Northern White Rhinoceros". This is a very important point-there are indeed seven Northern White Rhinoceros remaining, not six plus one hybrid.EpochVHS (talk) 08:52, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Broken External Link

While trying to follow a link to a Times article cited as a reference(cite note #2 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4152951.ece), I was unable to access the relevant page. The article title does actually appear on the Times website search facility, but every new page I attempted to access kept popping up a subscribe screen which was killing my browser - so eventually I gave up without having accessed the article. Can somebody attempt to verify whether the Times story satisfies the references on the article page. Thanks. Peter b (talk) 04:18, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

prospects for the subspecies/species.

I just read, on the IUCN page for northern white rhinos, that the animal is deemed unsustainable even with human intervention due to the incredibly small gene pool. The main prospect seems to be conserving the northern white genes within a mixed north-south group with prospects of naturalisation in the future.

The article seems to give only a timeline of events regarding the remaining specimens. The information regarding the prospects 'would' require a new heading for the article but would make a step towards completeness. Will someone with a little more biological insight do this? 80.176.89.230 (talk) 17:19, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Foto

Why do the captions say "foto" rather than "photo" in this article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.56.218.26 (talk) 10:07, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Range Map

The current map offered in the right-hand column doesn't seem to be as clear as it could be. What exactly are the orange and the green supposed to represent? It might seem obvious to some, but not me. Is the orange supposed to be its historical range and the green its present, conservationist range? If so, why not just indicate as much? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.243.152.118 (talk) 17:57, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

When enlarged, the map includes a legend, which I now added to the caption. Please note that the range map dates 1908. --WikiHannibal (talk) 09:11, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Population chart

A chart was needed but I suggest several improvements: 1) years with no change should be removed as they make the chart more complicated (2008-2010, 2013). 2) All changes in numbers should be sourced - 1989, 2004, and 2007/2008 onwards have no source, and for some years only some numbers are sourced, e.g. 1970. If one source provides data for the whole population, I would suggest placing the reference next to the year; if more sources are needed to back the data of a particular year, then next to the appropriate numbers. 3) Ol Pejeta Conservancy is listed as captivity population, which is not consistent with the article. I could do the changes myself but do not want to disrupt the chart for now. --WikiHannibal (talk) 17:03, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Wrong?

Shouldn't this be Extinct in the Wild, not Critically Endangered? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.12.245.18 (talk) 12:22, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

At some point this is going to need to be addressed on a case by case basis. The Version 3.1 IUCN dates back to 2000, this means that no update has been made for 15 years in regards to the status of animals. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 21:06, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Okay so it was 2011, still I am open for discussion as the article is saying two different things. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 23:38, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Which article? This one clearly categorized in as Critically Endangered with the proviso Possibly Extinct in the Wild acc. to a number of criteria in 2011. No doubt it will be reassessed at some point. But the general category is still CR. Attepts of editors to change it without a proper source or understanding, despite the metawarning, creates chaos in the article and wastes ther time of other editors. --WikiHannibal (talk) 09:28, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

@WikiHannibal: Im sorry if you feel this way, but the IUCN data is outdated. This should be done on a case by case basis unless you can offer up some evidence that there are more than just the 3 Northern white rhinos in captivity. If a majority of sources are saying one thing we cant just ignore it as going with the IUCN is not a WP:NPOV. That being said, I would support something along the lines of "Unknown" for status, or have the ICUN data, along with newer sources side by side. I will pull up what I found for sources later - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 15:25, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Looking forward to your sources but please bear in mind at least info contained in IUCN Red List - the whole classification is based on their expert assessment and even though there are other organisations conducting similar research in some areas, even single scientific articles on "extinction" are not comparable and thus useful sources. My feelings you mentioned stem from recurring attempts to deliberately change the status without understanding that the whole classification that is used in this and many other articles depends on IUCN reports. That is also why your proposal of "Unknown" etc. misses the point. --WikiHannibal (talk) 18:11, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Ol Pejeta Conservancy dead links

Hi, it seems many or all links to Ol Pejeta Conservancy are now dead or not linking to the same articles as before. And I think they are not archived. So it would be great if anyone had the time to check the links, recover what can be recovered, and find new sources to back up information formerly sourced by links to Ol Pejeta. Thanks, WikiHannibal (talk) 17:32, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Re: "IUCN classifications are capitalized"

@Elmidae: While the IUCN do use various forms of capitalization on their website, as far as I can tell Wikipedia doesn't follow suit unless it is a direct quote (in quotation marks). The Critically endangered article uses lower-case, and a look at some of the articles listed under What links here (about half dozen or so at random) tells me that other articles use lower-case unless it's a direct quote. The only exception to the rule that I spotted (aside from in this article) was at Orangutan, where the infobox erroneously uses a capital E (lower-case is used in prose). If there is some MoS convention for IUCN classifications then it doesn't seem to be generally adhered to. Regards, nagualdesign 22:30, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

nagualdesign - I agree it's a bit of a mixed bag. If I do a random half-dozen pull of high-profile species from the Endangered category [3], there's four uses of "Endangered" (Okapi, Asiatic lion, Night parrot, Red-browed amazon) and two of "endangered" (Green sea turtle, Sea otter). Standard use in conservation biology literature is capitalized, however, to distinguished classifications from common use of these terms. I think there's some benefit in sticking to that. - There's also the issue of two word (critically endangered, near threatened) vs one word statuses - for the two worders, IUCN capitalizes both, our infoboxes capitalize only the first word. Honestly, not sure if there's an official stance at WP. Worth an inquiry at the Taxonomy project maybe? --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 23:01, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Having searched through the first 30 articles in that list (up to Crayfish), all use lower-case apart from the following exceptions; Gorilla#Conservation status, Orangutan infobox, Red wolf infobox, and Crocodile#Species (4 instances). I suggest that the infoboxes are left as is and the others (plus this article) be 'corrected'. I should add that I haven't searched for any other IUCN category. In the absence of any extant convention (see what I did there?) I think it's better to stick to standard prose style in prose. I'm not against using capitalization if you or others prefer, but I do think we should at least be consistent one way or the other. nagualdesign 23:11, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Proposal

I haven't got the energy to make any sort of official proposal over at WP:MOS, because such efforts can sometimes feel like pushing a boulder uphill, but I do have a simple proposal that I've given some thought to which I'd be happy to put into action unless anyone disagrees:

• IUCN classifications should be capitalized when used as a direct quote (in quotation marks) or when making explicit references (eg, "the northern white rhinoceros is listed as Critically Endangered").
• Infobox entries are explicit references, since they generally include a reference to the appropriate IUCN Red List, and should therefore be capitalized.
• All other implicit references to official conservation status that appear in prosaic form (eg, "It is a critically endangered species") should be lower-case, since they are generally using common language.
• In cases of ambiguity the text may be altered to make clear whether the reference is explicit or implicit (eg, "It is a Critically Endangered species" → "It is classed as a Critically Endangered species").

How do you like them apples? nagualdesign 00:32, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

That sounds like a reasonable solution, but probably needs a wider forum. I'll drop a question at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life and see what people think! --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 16:03, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

I just spotted the discussion you started. Thank you for that. Unfortunately my cat's been in an accident so I might not be back here or able to join in for the next few days, but once everything's sorted with him we'll hopefully be in a better position to push forward with this, and I am still willing to do much of the leg work.

Perhaps I should have mentioned that part of the rationale for my proposal was that it would probably require the minimum amount of work/changes. Using the guidelines outlined above most articles are already largely 'correct', and it's just a few cases that are contradictory. The main change, from what I've seen, might actually be ensuring that taxobox entries are consistently capitalized (on the basis that they are explicit references). nagualdesign 20:20, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Opposed to the overcapitalization. We stylize in that manner with, essentially, nothing on Wikipedia. We don't do it with method acting, with second law of thermodynamics, etc., etc. There is nothing magically special about IUCN. Sources sometimes capitalize IUCN labels, sometimes they don't. That makes it inconsistent, and when the sources are not consistently (like over 90%) in favor of a stylization, we drop it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  14:26, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Not magically special, no, but as myself and others have said there is a slight but made-slightly-more-obvious difference in meaning between "The giant panda is an endangered species" and "The giant panda is classed as Endangered", whereas method acting is method acting, and ditto for thermodynamics. Ignoring all of the hyperbole, I think what you're trying to say is that the latter example should be rendered as "The giant panda is classed as endangered". I would argue that the fact that it will take far more work to apply your rationale (MOS:CAPS is rule #1) shows that there's already an established style, particular to IUCN categories, that has unofficially superseded MOS:CAPS. And the guidelines clearly state that it is not a requirement that the original formatting be preserved, so this 90% business is irrelevant, isn't it? Anyway, let's not split the discussion across too many pages or things will start to get unwieldy. I suggest we stop this thread for now and stick to the main discussion at WikiProject Tree of Life (all newcomers welcome!), and I'll just post the results here later. Cheers. nagualdesign 04:22, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Result

To be announced..!

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Aren't they extinct now?

I just read an article saying that Sudan, the last northern white rhino, died. Does this mean they're extinct or was Sudan the last one in conservation and some, but not much, are left alive? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Knowledge-sponge (talk • contribs) 11:58, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

The last male died, there are still 2 known animals alive, that makes it not completely extinct for a while. Daiyusha (talk) 13:01, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

I just read an article stating that there are two Northern White Rhinos left in the world. The table at the bottom of the article reflects that fact, but the rest of the article is woefully outdated. I am going to add the source, and a statement to the article. and maybe a tag that the article needs updating. FairlyFlatFoot (talk) 09:15, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

You can read the same info in the article, it is in the lead as well for anybody to see. The current IUCN classification, which is used in such articles, is "Critically endangered, possibly extinct in the wild" and as such, there is no reliable info the article can be updated with. The structure of the article is perhaps confusing, but I do not think article is "woefully outdated". Removing the tag. WikiHannibal (talk) 11:04, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Morphological differences

As covered in The Sixth Rhino: A Taxonomic Re-Assessment of the Critically Endangered Northern White Rhinoceros published in 2010, The Northern white rhinoceros has numerous morphological differences from the southern variety, including cranial anatomy and average size, can this be added to the article? Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:35, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't see why not, provided that it's properly sourced, and if the article also includes statements by other scientists who disagree with the conclusion that the northern white rhino is a separate species and not merely a subspecies. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 13:01, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Needs update

see [4]. Dialmayo (talk) (Contribs) she/her 16:07, 9 January 2024 (UTC)