Threats to the White Rhinoceros (draft)
Historical Hunting
Paraphrase
http://www.isfoundation.com/news/creatures/rhino-poaching
Rhino poaching is, unfortunately, nothing new. Fifty million years ago, there were many diverse rhino species throughout the world including what was believed to be a twenty-foot long animal with a single seven-foot long horn. Between 350,000-8,000 years ago the furry woolly rhinoceros, a relative to the Sumatran rhinoceros, lived throughout northern Europe and eastern Asia, until they became extinct. Their extinction was believed to have been caused by human hunters. Between 1600 and 1900, hunters and habitat loss caused the Indian rhinoceros population to drastically decrease, as it is believed that by 1910, there were less than fifty found in India. In the late 1800s, the act of hunting for sport, and the need for the animal’s horn, almost wiped out the population of the white rhino, and left them facing probable extinction, with only twenty southern white rhinos in south Africa. In 1952, anti-poaching measures by the governments of India and Nepal were put into place, and the Indian rhino population began to climb. In 1961, “Operation Rhino”, a program to restore the southern White Rhino, began at the Umfolozi Game Reserve in South Africa. Southern White Rhinos were moved to this new protected location and their numbers began to climb. In 1970, it was estimated that the total population of all five species of rhinos had dropped ninety percent since historic times. This is mostly due to the demands for their horns. The only rhino that seems to be unaffected by poaching is that of the Black Rhino. But between 1970 and 1992, the Black Rhino population became victim to poaching and by 1993 there are only approximately 2,300 black rhinos in the wild. In 2001, Andalas, a male Sumatran rhino calf was born at the Cincinnati Zoo, the first ever to be born into captivity. In 2007, the wild rhino population was approximately 17,800, with another 1,160 living in captivity. - See more at: http://www.isfoundation.com/news/creatures/rhino-poaching#sthash.atzUisS8.dpuf
Historically the major factor in the decline of white rhinos was uncontrolled hunting in the colonial era, but now poaching for their horn is the primary threat. The white rhino is particularly vulnerable to hunting, because it is a large and relatively unaggressive animal and generally occurs in herds.
Despite the lack of scientific evidence, the rhino horn is highly prized in traditional Asian medicine, where it is ground into a fine powder or manufactured into tablets to be used as a treatment for a variety of illnesses such as nosebleeds, strokes, convulsions, and fevers. Due to this demand, several highly organized and very profitable international poaching syndicates came into being and would carry out their poaching missions with advanced technologies ranging from night vision scopes, silenced weapons, darting equipment and even helicopters. The ongoing civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo and incursions by poachers primarily coming from Sudan have further disrupted efforts to protect the few remaining northern rhino.
Conservation