Rhino numbers are remarkable, but poachers lurk amid the high demand for horns | Wildlife News

Africa reports 586 rhinos killed in 2023, up from 551 in 2022, with poaching being the biggest threat.

The number of rhinos worldwide increased slightly in 2023, but the number of animals killed by poachers also increased slightly, according to a new report.

Thanks to conservation efforts, the number of white rhinos increased by 1,522 to 17,464 in 2023, said the annual report of the International Rhino Foundation on the occasion of World Rhino Day on Sunday. However, the number of black and large one-horned rhinos remained the same, it added.

That left the global rhino population of the five subspecies at about 28,000, up from 500,000 at the beginning of the 20th century.

In Africa, one rhino was killed every 15 hours last year as the animal’s horn is still needed, the State of the Rhino report said.

586 rhinos were killed across the continent, most of them in South Africa, which has the highest number of rhinos estimated at 16,056. The number of rhinos killed increased slightly from 551 in 2022, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

However, the number of white rhinos is increasing in South Africa despite illegal killings due to conservation efforts, the report said.

While thriving in several regions, black rhino populations have declined slightly over the past year due to illegal poaching in Namibia and South Africa.

As of July 2023, Indonesian authorities have been investigating and prosecuting Javan rhino poaching groups, who admitted to killing 26 animals in Ujung Kulon National Park from 2019 to 2023.

In India, the number of Asiatic one-horned rhinos has increased from 1,500 in the past four decades to more than 4,000 thanks to conservation and anti-poaching efforts, according to government data included in the report.

Rhinos face various environmental threats such as habitat loss due to development and climate change but poaching, based on the belief that their horns have medicinal uses, remains a major threat.

Philip Muruthi, the vice president for animal conservation at the Africa Wildlife Foundation, said that protection has played a major role in the increase of the rhino.

In Kenya their number increased from 380 in 1986 to 1,000 last year, he said. “Why did that happen? Because rhinos are brought to their breeding grounds and protected.”

Muruthi promotes a campaign to eliminate the need for rhino horns and the adoption of new technologies in tracking and monitoring rhinos for their protection and also educates the communities where they live about the benefits of rhinos in the environment and economy.

Rhinos known as megaherbivores mow down parks and attack other herbivores, they are also good at establishing forests by bringing in seeds and spreading them throughout the reserves in their dung.