tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/white-rhino-31231/articleswhite rhino – The Conversation2023-09-22T14:58:11Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2139322023-09-22T14:58:11Z2023-09-22T14:58:11ZFarmed rhinos will soon ‘rewild’ the African savanna<p>With all the terrible news on climate change, it’s easy to lose track of what’s happening with particular species. So, in case you missed it, <a href="https://rhinos.org/about-rhinos/state-of-the-rhino/">a new report</a> has bad news for Earth’s five surviving species of rhino. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.savetherhino.org/rhino-info/threats/poaching-rhino-horn/">Poaching for rhino horn</a> continues to threaten populations of rhino in Africa, and the two smallest and most endangered species of rhino – the Sumatran rhino and the Javan rhino – tread ever closer to being unable to <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/amid-government-inaction-indonesias-rhinos-head-toward-extinction-analysis/">sustain themselves in the wild</a>, due to habitat loss and low population sizes.</p>
<p>While we should never become desensitised to wildlife crime, environmental destruction and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08qym98">species extinctions</a>, there is also some remarkable news. Conservation charity <a href="https://www.africanparks.org/">African Parks</a> recently bought the largest private collection of rhino in the world: the <a href="https://platinumrhino.co.za/">Platinum Rhino</a> farm at Klerksdorp, near Johannesburg in South Africa, previously owned by South African businessman John Hume.</p>
<p>African Parks plans to release the total Platinum Rhino ranch population, currently 2,000 rhino (amounting to roughly 15% of the global white rhino population), into the wild across Africa <a href="https://www.africanparks.org/campaign/rewilding-2000-rhino">over the next ten years</a>. That is good news. As an ecologist, I don’t see the point in conserving a wild species to keep in captivity. Wildlife belongs in the wild.</p>
<p>Hume’s plan to buy up and breed farmed rhino might have allowed him to sell horns for a profit once legal international trade was permitted. But that <a href="https://rhinos.org/blog/cites-and-the-rhino-horn-trade/">didn’t happen</a>.</p>
<p>The international ban on trading rhino horn, enacted by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), has held firm, despite <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDmTaKxAv6Y">lobbying by Hume</a> and others. These critics were joined by some conservationists who believe that the best or only way to save rhino is by legalising the trade in their horns. The logic here is that legalisation would flood the market with legal rhino horn, devaluing illegal horns and slashing the profits of poachers and wildlife traffickers. With that, the incentive to kill rhino would shrink.</p>
<p>Hume continued to expand his private rhino farm and used his increasing rhino population as leverage in his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0iTH9N12o0">calls for legalisation</a>. But with the ban on international trade <a href="https://cites.org/eng/prog/terrestrial_fauna/Rhinoceroces">intact</a>, Hume seems to have ran out of patience. The Platinum Rhino collection was put up for online auction in April 2023 at a starting price of <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-09-12-conserving-and-rewilding-john-humes-rhinos-may-cost-r1bn-or-more/">US$10 million</a> (£8.1 million). It <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-05-08-john-humes-platinum-rhino-project-has-no-viable-business-model-that-bodes-ill-for-big-critter-conservation">failed to attract bids</a>. </p>
<p>That may reflect the problem that rhino face: if people can’t make money out of rhino, nobody is going to want to pay to look after them. But it also highlights a problem driven by farming wildlife for profit, otherwise known as game ranching: if the profits fall, what happens to the animals?</p>
<h2>Into the wild</h2>
<p>After its failure to sell at auction, the largest private collection of rhino in the world was bought by <a href="https://www.africanparks.org/campaign/rewilding-2000-rhino">African Parks</a>. But the charity’s plan to rewild these rhino will not be easy.</p>
<p>A number of years ago I was involved in what was, at the time, the largest private <a href="https://www.jasongilchrist.co.uk/photo_galleries_538019.html">translocation of rhino</a>. The team I worked with moved tens of rhino; the African Parks mission is a lot bigger.</p>
<p>African Parks manages an area of 20 million hectares spread across 22 national parks and protected areas over 12 countries. They will contain suitable savanna grassland for releasing the rhino and the charity has already reintroduced rhino to parks in Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo and Malawi.</p>
<p>Conservation scientists recently said there is “a clear need to <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1617138123000535?via%3Dihub">scale up rewilding initiatives</a>”. It doesn’t get much bigger than reintroducing thousands of rhino across Africa. Rhino can play a <a href="https://africageographic.com/stories/why-are-rhinos-important-for-ecosystems/">key role</a> in restoring the ecosystems into which they are placed, greatly influencing a network of species around them and healing ecological wounds incurred via people. </p>
<p>This is the nature of <a href="https://www.iucn.org/resources/issues-brief/benefits-and-risks-rewilding">rewilding</a>: restoring the linkages that make up ecosystems. Restored megafauna (large herbivorous mammals, in this case) can also help address climate change by enhancing how much habitats <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01631-6">naturally store carbon</a>, through dispersing seeds and enriching the soil.</p>
<p>Restoring megafauna is tricky, and in a recent scientific paper conservationists argued for changes in policy to support it. They suggest “a transition from farming to wildlife ranching, combined with ambitious <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1617138123000535?via%3Dihub">breeding programs for keystone megafauna</a>”. The Platinum Rhino population may well turn out to be a flagship in showing that such an approach is achievable.</p>
<p>Where will the rhino go? Will they be released into areas where rhino are locally extinct, or supplement existing populations? Can they be used to fulfil the role vacated by the functionally extinct <a href="https://rhinos.org/tough-issues/northern-white-rhino/">northern white rhino (subspecies)</a>?</p>
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<p>Time will tell. In the meantime, the farmed rhino need to be prepared to cope with the stress of translocation and release, and for a wild life. They need to be toughened, to find and process food from the natural environments in which they will be placed. They will need to tolerate the challenges of their new environments, such as disease, parasites and predators. </p>
<p>The most dangerous predator of rhino remains <a href="https://www.savetherhino.org/rhino-info/poaching-stats/">the human species</a>. The conundrum of how to stop or even simply reduce the loss of free-living rhino to poachers remains. The soon-to-be-released rhino will have to deal with this – with traditional anti-poaching conservation support. Alongside that, <a href="https://natureneedsmore.org/the-facts-about-rhino-horn-demand-reduction-campaigns/">demand reduction</a> efforts must continue in order to bring down the desire for rhino horn.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jason Gilchrist does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What would you do with 2,000 farmed rhinos? An African charity wants them to help their wild cousins.Jason Gilchrist, Lecturer in the School of Applied Sciences, Edinburgh Napier UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2058602023-05-30T11:17:11Z2023-05-30T11:17:11ZHalf of Africa’s white rhino population is in private hands – it’s time for a new conservation approach<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527956/original/file-20230524-18-lohud9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A white rhino in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Enrico Di Minin</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Southern white rhinos are widely known as a <a href="https://rhinos.org/blog/facing-down-a-crisis-how-we-almost-lost-the-white-rhino/">conservation success story</a>. Their population grew from fewer than 100 individuals in the 1920s <a href="https://rhinos.org/blog/facing-down-a-crisis-how-we-almost-lost-the-white-rhino/">to 20,000</a> in 2012, mostly in South Africa. </p>
<p>This success was partially due to the inclusion of the private sector, which started in the 1960s when white rhinos were moved from their last remaining population in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park and placed in other state reserves as well as on private land. In 1991 the <a href="https://lawfulliving.co.za/book/text/agriculture--game-theft.html">Game Theft Act</a> formalised conditions for private rhino ownership and use. Poaching pressure was low at the time, and the demand for rhinos by ecotourists and trophy hunters gave private landowners incentives to grow their rhino populations. </p>
<p>Based on publicly available data, <a href="https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/fee.2593">our recent paper</a> shows that, today, private landholders conserve over half of South Africa’s white rhinos. Communities conserve a further 1% of the white rhinos. This trend is not unique to South Africa. More than 75% of Zimbabwe’s and Namibia’s white rhinos are on private lands. Although outside their natural range, in east Africa 72% of Kenya’s white rhino populations are conserved by private landowners.</p>
<p>In South Africa, the increasing contribution of private rhino custodians over the past few decades is partly due to their success and partly due to shrinking rhino populations in <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-02-14-saving-private-rhino-non-government-owners-of-the-animals-succeed-in-stemming-poaching-carnage/">key state parks</a>. Poaching is largely to blame for shrinking populations. A decade ago, the 2-million-hectare Kruger National Park held over half of the world’s 20,000 white rhinos. Today the park has just over 2,000 of the <a href="https://africageographic.com/stories/kruger-rhino-poaching-update-75-population-reduction-in-10-years/">remaining 16,000 white rhinos</a>. Kruger lost 6% of its population to poaching in <a href="https://sajs.co.za/article/view/11300">2020 alone</a>. Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park has suffered <a href="https://mg.co.za/environment/2023-02-08-rhino-poaching-declines-in-kruger-but-poachers-are-on-the-rampage-in-kzn/">similar declines</a>.</p>
<p>Private ranches in South Africa, meanwhile, lost <a href="https://sajs.co.za/article/view/11300">just 0.5%</a> of their rhinos to poaching in 2020. This is likely because smaller private properties are easier to secure and because private ranchers spend more per rhino on security – <a href="https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/fee.2593#page=4">R28,600 (US$2200)</a> per rhino in 2017, <a href="https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/fee.2593#page=4">compared with an estimated R8,600 (US$520)</a> per rhino spent by South African National Parks.</p>
<p>This high spend on security may have reduced poaching risk, but it has also reduced the <a href="https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/conl.12741">benefits accrued</a> from owning rhinos. Even for rhino owners who are not financially motivated, the growing costs of protecting rhinos from poaching are difficult to sustain. </p>
<p>In our <a href="https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/fee.2593">paper</a>, we outline potential policy pathways to support rhino conservation beyond state parks. Additional revenue streams are needed to give private and community rhino custodians the incentive. These could include tapping into markets beyond ecotourism and trophy hunting, such as carbon and biodiversity credits. Incentives could also include private sector funding through impact investments, and government funding through tax incentives. New community custodians are likely to require state support, at least initially.</p>
<p>As large grazers, rhinos play <a href="https://africageographic.com/stories/why-are-rhinos-important-for-ecosystems/">an important role</a> in their ecosystem. Their decline is evoking <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320719305099">strong sentimental reactions</a> from people around the world. This raises the question: to what extent should the costs of protecting globally valued rhinos be carried by their local custodians?</p>
<h2>The cost is too high</h2>
<p>In 2018 we <a href="https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/conl.12741">estimated</a> that 28% of private rhino owners in South Africa were disinvesting, while 57% were continuing as usual and 15% were investing in more rhinos. </p>
<p>At that time rhino breeder John Hume was one of the flagship investors. He and some other private rhino owners had been investing in rhinos in the hope that rhino horn trade would be legalised, which would make the cost-benefit ratio of owning rhinos <a href="https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cobi.12412">considerably more favourable</a>. </p>
<p>But in April 2023, Hume held an online auction to sell the 2,000 white rhinos he owned – representing about 13% of the continental population. <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-05-01-shaky-future-for-2000-rhinos-after-mega-breeders-auction-fails-to-attract-bidders/">He said</a> he could no longer afford his costly rhino breeding operation. The auction failed to attract any bidders. </p>
<p>There are three possible outcomes for Hume’s rhinos. One, a buyer could take over the operation. Two, the animals could be relocated to parks in South Africa or other <a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/4185/45813880#geographic-range">countries in sub-Saharan Africa</a>. Or they might be relocated abroad, beyond their historical range (for instance to Asia or Australia).</p>
<p>The first outcome would be the simplest. But it doesn’t solve the problem that rhinos are increasingly expensive to support. </p>
<p>The second option is attractive because it would boost population numbers in parks that have lost their populations. However, the “space” for rhinos in many of these parks likely signals their failure at protecting their rhinos in the first place. Rewilding would require a new strategy for <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320721004705">protecting them</a>.</p>
<p>Moving rhinos beyond their historical range has been considered before. A multi-million-dollar <a href="https://theaustralianrhinoproject.org/index.php/about">proposal</a> to move rhinos to Australia (where they do not naturally occur) received support but also <a href="https://theecologist.org/2017/may/02/rhinos-should-be-conserved-africa-not-moved-australia">criticism</a>. Almost 1,000 white rhinos are already in captivity around the world and such projects arguably divert funds and expertise away from conservation efforts in the countries where rhinos naturally occur.</p>
<p>It’s important to consider how to support private rhino custodianship so that we don’t end up with more rhinos for sale that <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-01-16-private-and-communal-lands-conserve-half-of-africas-rhinos-and-call-for-adaptive-policies/">no one wants to buy</a>.</p>
<h2>Innovative solutions, partnerships</h2>
<p>A diversity of models and a <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2021-08-05-saving-private-rhino-we-must-reimagine-the-future-of-species-conservation-in-south-africa/">common vision</a> is needed to conserve thriving populations of rhinos across state, private and community land. </p>
<p>Rhinos should not unjustly burden those who serve as their custodians. Income from ecotourism and trophy hunting is insufficient under current poaching conditions and costs. How can the cost-benefit ratio of conserving rhinos be shifted?</p>
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<img alt="Several rhinos are seen at a distance against the backdrop of grassland and a mountain" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527955/original/file-20230524-7504-w56bss.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527955/original/file-20230524-7504-w56bss.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527955/original/file-20230524-7504-w56bss.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527955/original/file-20230524-7504-w56bss.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527955/original/file-20230524-7504-w56bss.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527955/original/file-20230524-7504-w56bss.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527955/original/file-20230524-7504-w56bss.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">White rhinos on a large private game reserve in South Africa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hayley Clements</span></span>
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<p>Legalising international horn trade would certainly shift the ratio, but there is <a href="https://africageographic.com/stories/will-legal-international-rhino-horn-trade-save-wild-rhino-populations/">strong pushback</a>. At best horn trade is a medium-term solution since international policy moves slowly.</p>
<p>Additional, nearer-term options include <a href="https://conservationnamibia.com/articles/cnam2020-wildlife-credits.php">rhino credits</a> and <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/03/23/wildlife-conservation-bond-boosts-south-africa-s-efforts-to-protect-black-rhinos-and-support-local-communities">impact bonds</a> – large-scale philanthropy that pays for conservation success. </p>
<p>There is <a href="https://www.oneearth.org/how-restoring-key-wildlife-species-can-be-a-game-changing-climate-solution/">growing evidence</a> that wildlife populations can increase soil carbon – possibly enabling wildlife ranches to tap into carbon credit markets. The government can also recognise and support the role of rhino custodians through <a href="https://www.birdlife.org.za/what-we-do/important-bird-and-biodiversity-areas/what-we-do-ibas/fiscal-benefits-project/">tax incentives</a>. South Africa is a pioneer in biodiversity stewardship tax incentives, though they are currently only available to landowners who formally declare their land as protected. </p>
<p>Time is <a href="https://africageographic.com/stories/the-state-of-africas-rhino/">running out for rhinos</a>: more inclusive, equitable and innovative solutions are needed to support their conservation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205860/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hayley Clements receives funding from a Jennifer Ward Oppenheimer Research Grant and Kone Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dave Balfour is a freelance ecologist and a member of the IUCN SSC African Rhino Specialist Group and Chairs the SADC Rhino Management Group. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Enrico Di Minin receives funding from the European Research Council – EU's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program (grant agreement 802933).</span></em></p>To what extent should the costs of protecting globally valued rhinos be carried by their local custodians?Hayley Clements, Researcher, Stellenbosch UniversityDave Balfour, Freelance conservation ecologist, Nelson Mandela UniversityEnrico Di Minin, Associate Professor in Conservation Geography, University of HelsinkiLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1735062021-12-14T14:30:44Z2021-12-14T14:30:44ZMoving African rhinos: what it takes to translocate an endangered species<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436929/original/file-20211210-19-pshpls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">White rhinos</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Manoj Shah/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Rhino translocations have become a critical tool in the arsenal for the protection of these endangered animals. Recently, 30 white rhinos were flown into Rwanda from South Africa and introduced into the Akagera National Park, in what was the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/29/white-rhinos-flown-from-south-africa-to-rwanda-in-largest-single-translocation">single largest</a> rhino translocation. It was carried out through a collaboration between the Rwanda Development Board, African Parks and tourism agency, andBeyond, and the South African private reserve, with funding provided by the Howard G. Buffett Foundation.</em></p>
<p><em>But moving rhinos to new landscapes and countries is complicated and expensive. Mike Knight, Chair of the African Rhino Specialist Group at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), has been involved in many translocations over 20 years. He spoke to Moina Spooner, from The Conversation Africa, about what it takes.</em></p>
<h2>How many white rhinos are there in Africa? And why are they so special?</h2>
<p>Well, let’s start off with why rhinos are so special. </p>
<p>Rhinos play a fundamental role in transforming the natural environment. If you take white rhinos out of the system, it changes. </p>
<p>When you compare white and black rhinos, they’re very different. At 1,500kg, white rhinos are a much larger species. They move in small groups and are grazers. They are considered ecological engineers, altering the habitat by creating grazing lawns, pushing back bush encroachment. By contrast, the smaller bodied (800-1200kg) black rhinos are browsers. They operate more often on their own, are far more picky in what they eat, altering the environment in different ways. </p>
<p>There are two subspecies of white rhino; southern and northern whites. Between 40 and 50 years ago, there were more northern whites than southern whites, and that’s reversed entirely. We’re now down to just two northern whites, housed on a private reserve in Kenya. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436928/original/file-20211210-68670-6d28y0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436928/original/file-20211210-68670-6d28y0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436928/original/file-20211210-68670-6d28y0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436928/original/file-20211210-68670-6d28y0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436928/original/file-20211210-68670-6d28y0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436928/original/file-20211210-68670-6d28y0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436928/original/file-20211210-68670-6d28y0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rhino caretaker, Mohammed Doyo, with the two surviving female northern white rhinos at Ol Pejeta Conservancy, Kenya.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/DAI KUROKAWA</span></span>
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<p>In the late 19th century, southern white rhinos <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/white-rhino">were almost</a> on the brink of extinction. This was due to poaching and hunting. But in 1895 a small population of fewer than 100 individuals was discovered in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. After more than a century of protection and good management, there are now <a href="https://pachydermjournal.org/index.php/pachyderm/article/view/28/4=page16#">around</a> 17,600 white rhinos (as of 2018) living in protected areas and private game reserves. This figure is based upon continental estimates that we, as the IUCN’s rhino specialist group, pull together every two to three years. </p>
<p>However, this success story is being threatened by the illegal trade in horn. Between 2006 and 2020, <a href="https://pachydermjournal.org/index.php/pachyderm/article/view/67/382">10,600 rhinos</a> across the continent have been lost. With the exception of a few areas, rhinos are surviving in well protected, smaller national parks and reserves. </p>
<h2>Why were these rhinos translocated to Rwanda?</h2>
<p>The recovery of the white rhino is a fantastic conservation success. This is where the recent introduction of white rhinos to Rwanda fits in. Having a population in a Rwanda could create a secure new breeding stronghold in East Africa and help ensure the long-term survival of the species in the wild.</p>
<p>For Rwanda and Rwandans, the translocation will enhance Akagera’s appeal, contributing to Rwanda’s wildlife economy.</p>
<h2>What factors have to be taken into account when moving rhinos to a different country?</h2>
<p>Before introducing a species you need to run through a hierarchical checklist of issues from historical distribution, habitat suitability, disease, law enforcement, sustainability, threats and political support, to name a number. </p>
<p>Understanding the habitat that the animals are going into and whether it suits them is critical. There’s no recent recorded history record of white rhinos in Rwanda. However, southern white rhinos <a href="https://pachydermjournal.org/index.php/pachyderm/article/view/311/267">were recorded</a> south of the Zambezi River and Northern Whites in Uganda, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. So it’s essentially like a novel species being introduced into very good habitat. </p>
<p>Akagera national park has been assessed to be able to support of sizeable population of about 120 white rhinos and could play an important role in conserving the species, especially in East Africa.</p>
<p>Given the threats from poaching, addressing security issues remains paramount as it can undermine all the best introductions. <a href="https://www.africanparks.org/">African Parks</a> – a non-profit conservation organisation that managed protected areas, including Akagera – haven’t lost an animal to poaching over the last decade. The <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2017/05/rwanda-welcomes-20-black-rhinos-to-akagera-national-park/">introduction</a> of black rhinos to the park in 2017 has given the park authorities time to prove they are well equipped to secure white rhinos too. </p>
<p>Then we need a suitable number. It’s not Noah’s Ark, you need more than two – we ideally recommend at least 25 unrelated animals to get a population going. This reduces potential social problems and also provides the budding population with greater genetic diversity to adapt to the new conditions. </p>
<p>On the disease front there were a number of concerns especially from trypanosomiasis, or tryps, as we call it. We know from some past failed introductions, that tryps can have disastrous consequences to white rhinos that remain naive to tryps. In the case of this introduction, the parks officials under expert veterinary advice have been reducing the challenge posed by tryps through the erection of more than 800 tsetse fly traps and dosing the rhinos with a prophylaxis. The intention is not to eradicate tryps but rather for the rhinos to slowly grow their immunity to the disease. </p>
<p>Any international translocation requires political support from national governments and conservation authorities and should be in full compliance with international agreements, such as <a href="https://cites.org/eng">CITES</a>. Both the South African and Rwandan governments are in full support of this translocation as its covered by the general MOU between the two countries that covers all matters associated with biodiversity conservation. Because the white rhino is an IUCN regulated species, this introduction had all the required export and import permits from CITES.</p>
<p>Sourcing the animals is also an important aspect. Who’s going to make those animals available? Are they being acquired, or have they to be donated? South Africa has a vibrant wildlife industry based upon the buying and selling of wildlife. Souring from one site (as in this case) was ideal from a logistical and animal management perspective.</p>
<p>Then you have to catch them and translocate them. A lot of time is spent on planning for this and ensuring the animals are treated as well as possible. Moving animals over thousands of kilometers is a serious endeavour. With 30 animals, chartered jumbo jets are the best way. This requires considerable veterinary and logistical coordination to capture the animals, load into crates, transport to the aircraft, load as quickly as possible, unload similarly, transport to the site and release into well-sited and secure bomas. Documentation needs to be in order with customs and immigration officials on both ends to make it as smooth as possible. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/rhinos-scientists-are-hanging-them-upside-down-from-helicopters-heres-why-167832">Rhinos: scientists are hanging them upside-down from helicopters – here’s why</a>
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<p>Upon arrival, animals are put into holding bomas to get them adjusted to the local different foods that they’ll encounter. What often happens at this stage, because the rhinos aren’t familiar with the surroundings or new diet, is that the animals can lose condition. The boma programme could take up to seven weeks. </p>
<p>Once they’re in the new habitat, the next concern is security and making sure people can take care of them and monitor them. </p>
<h2>Should rhino translocations to other countries in Africa be encouraged?</h2>
<p>As a rhino specialist, I advocate translocation. Translocation has been one of the most important tools in our conservation <a href="https://rhinos.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/rhino_managers_handbook.pdf">box of tricks</a> as it allows us to spread our eggs into multiple baskets nationally and internationally. Its been one of the factors behind the success of the rhino conservation efforts in Africa thus far.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173506/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike Knight does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For rhino specialists, translocation has been one of the most important tools in the conservation box of tricks.Mike Knight, Chair IUCN rhino specialist group and Research Associate, Nelson Mandela UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1476082020-10-15T12:41:13Z2020-10-15T12:41:13ZOnly two northern white rhinos remain, and they’re both female – here’s how we could make more<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363666/original/file-20201015-21-tz5vy3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3201%2C2501&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">White rhinos owe their name to the Afrikaans word 'wyd', meaning wide, which refers to the animal's wide mouth.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/northern-white-rhinoceros-ceratotherium-simum-cottoni-1051364828">Vladislav T. Jirousek/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There were fewer than 100 southern white rhinoceroses (<em>Ceratotherium simum simum</em>) a century ago. Today, there are over 20,000. Sadly, this success story only stretches as far as the southern subspecies of the white rhino. With the death of the last male in 2018, the northern white rhinoceros (<em>Ceratotherium simum cottoni</em>) has passed the point where it can be saved naturally. With only two females remaining, the subspecies is now classed as functionally extinct.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225899/original/file-20180703-116132-1wguvty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225899/original/file-20180703-116132-1wguvty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225899/original/file-20180703-116132-1wguvty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225899/original/file-20180703-116132-1wguvty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225899/original/file-20180703-116132-1wguvty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225899/original/file-20180703-116132-1wguvty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225899/original/file-20180703-116132-1wguvty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Historical distributions of the northern (red) and southern (green) white rhino.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://genome.cshlp.org/content/early/2018/05/16/gr.227603.117">Tunstall et al 2018</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is a poignant, but not entirely hopeless, situation. New techniques, such as in vitro fertilisation (commonly known as IVF), enable us to bypass normal reproduction to produce new northern white rhino babies. Sperm samples from deceased males that are preserved in bio-banks solve one side of the equation, but there aren’t frozen stores of northern white rhino eggs that we can rely on as easily.</p>
<p>We established the Rhino Fertility Project at the University of Oxford to help solve this problem. By using ovary tissue from deceased female rhinos to grow lots of eggs for fertilisation in a lab, we think we may have found a way to save the northern white rhinoceros – and potentially, other endangered species – from extinction.</p>
<h2>The first breakthroughs</h2>
<p>A team led by <a href="https://phys.org/news/2019-02-scientists-fine-tune-method-rhinos.html">Professor Thomas Hildebrandt</a> from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Germany had a breakthrough in 2019 when they managed to collect eggs from the last remaining northern white rhinoceros females. After treating the females with hormones the immature eggs were collected, transferred to a lab where they were matured and then fertilised with frozen sperm. </p>
<p>To date, a handful of northern white rhinoceros embryos have been created this way. They’re frozen and awaiting implantation in a surrogate female southern white rhinoceros. Transferring embryos into surrogates to produce baby animals is a process that’s been well established for lots of species, including horses and cows, though it’s still in the development phase for rhinos.</p>
<p>But the biggest constraint on this approach is that hormonal stimulation of female rhinos produces just a few eggs per cycle. Not all of these eggs will fertilise and not all will develop into an embryo. After transfer to a surrogate, only some will complete their development and become baby rhinos. As you might imagine, with only two remaining rhinos to gather these precious eggs from, this limits our ability to revive entire populations.</p>
<p>So what if we had the means to produce more eggs? While eggs collected from female rhinos are in short supply, generating eggs from ovarian tissue from deceased rhinos could fill the gap.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/coral-sex-how-reproducing-species-in-the-lab-could-be-key-to-restoring-reefs-in-the-wild-143776">Coral sex: how reproducing species in the lab could be key to restoring reefs in the wild</a>
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<h2>Petri dish rhinos</h2>
<p>As in humans, every female rhinoceros is born with thousands, if not millions, of immature ovarian follicles. At the centre of each of these sits an immature egg, also known as an oocyte. The follicle grows over months until it’s ready to ovulate. At this point, these contain fluid and secrete hormones which influence the menstrual cycle. Ovaries contain lots of these immature follicles that are just waiting to be activated – in fact, far more follicles than are actually needed. As follicles grow and some are selected for ovulation, many are lost.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361920/original/file-20201006-20-1lbm16f.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A mass of white tissue (the follicle) within the surrounding pink ovarian tissue." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361920/original/file-20201006-20-1lbm16f.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361920/original/file-20201006-20-1lbm16f.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361920/original/file-20201006-20-1lbm16f.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361920/original/file-20201006-20-1lbm16f.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361920/original/file-20201006-20-1lbm16f.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361920/original/file-20201006-20-1lbm16f.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361920/original/file-20201006-20-1lbm16f.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A follicle situated in the ovarian tissue of a southern white rhinoceros.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ruth Appeltant</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Rhinos don’t undergo the menopause and so the ovaries of older animals still contain small follicles. Our goal is to grow these from the ovarian tissue of a deceased rhinoceros in the lab. We’re experimenting with techniques that maximise the number of follicles we can grow in a culture dish.</p>
<p>By harnessing the full potential of rhino ovaries, we aim to grow as many eggs as possible. We’re developing our method using ovarian tissue from different rhino species, including the southern white, Indian and black rhinoceros. Since all rhino species are either threatened or endangered, this technology could help more species than just the northern white, including the rare Javan and Sumatran rhinos.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361921/original/file-20201006-16-3qi24r.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A schematic that visualises the process described in the text, from deceased ovarian tissue, to new offspring." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361921/original/file-20201006-16-3qi24r.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361921/original/file-20201006-16-3qi24r.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361921/original/file-20201006-16-3qi24r.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361921/original/file-20201006-16-3qi24r.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361921/original/file-20201006-16-3qi24r.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361921/original/file-20201006-16-3qi24r.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361921/original/file-20201006-16-3qi24r.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">How oocytes in follicles can develop into offspring by using in vitro ovarian tissue culture.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ruth Appeltant</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But as you can imagine, there aren’t many rhinoceros ovaries available for laboratory research in the UK. Shipping tissue from threatened or endangered species in Africa to the UK in a timely manner is impossible, with many legal hurdles and mountains of paperwork. Collaboration between zoos, wildlife parks and research institutes is of the utmost importance here, to allow us to obtain this precious ovarian tissue. </p>
<p>The experience and knowledge we’re gaining by developing this technique could even be useful in conservation efforts for other species. By freezing ovarian tissue and sperm from other endangered species and developing methods to cultivate follicles in labs, we could prevent further losses of some of Earth’s most iconic wildlife and revive ecosystems rich in biodiversity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147608/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ruth Appeltant receives funding from Fondation Hoffmann via The Rhino Fertility Project.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Suzannah Williams established and leads the Rhino Fertility Project, which is funded by Foundation Hoffmann.</span></em></p>By unlocking the full potential of rhino ovaries, we hope to produce enough eggs to revive the northern white rhino in the wild.Ruth Appeltant, Postdoctoral Researcher in the Conservation of Endangered Species, University of OxfordSuzannah Williams, Associate Professor in Ovarian Physiology, Lead for Ovarian Cryopreservation and Fertility Preservation Research, Lead of Rhino Fertility Project, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1181032019-05-31T15:58:32Z2019-05-31T15:58:32ZScientists race to save the Sumatran rhino as last male in Malaysia dies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277411/original/file-20190531-69059-1mjldmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C933%2C672&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rosa in the Sumatran Rhino (_Dicerorhinus sumatrensis_) Sanctuary, Way Kambas, Sumatra, Indonesia.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumatran_rhinoceros#/media/File:Sumatran_Rhinoceros_Way_Kambas_2008.jpg">Willem v Strien/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Rhino die every day, so why is the world mourning the loss of Tam? Tam was the <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/05/last-sumatran-rhino-malaysia-dies/?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=social::src=twitter::cmp=editorial::add=tw20190527animals-lastmalesumatranrhino::rid=&sf213370109=1">last male Sumatran rhinoceros in Malaysia</a> and was thought to have died of old age in his thirties – elderly for a Sumatran rhino. He was taken from the wild in 2008 to a sanctuary in Malaysian Borneo. His health had been deteriorating since April 2019 and he finally succumbed in May. He is survived by a single female, Iman, who cannot reproduce due to a ruptured tumour in her uterus.</p>
<p>The news isn’t good, but an estimated 80 individuals survive in the wilds of Indonesia – not a great number, but <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/javan-rhino">marginally better than the Javan rhino</a> which <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/javan-rhino">may be as few as 58</a>. By comparison, the African white rhino, which draws a great deal of concern, is <a href="https://www.savetherhino.org/rhino-info/population-figures/">thought to number 20,000</a>. But populations of the Sumatran rhino – the world’s smallest and hairiest rhino – have declined 70% in the past two decades, mainly due to poaching and habitat loss, and are now <a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/6553/12787457">classed as critically endangered</a> – the highest possible risk of extinction.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/africas-rhinos-hog-the-limelight-while-their-asian-cousins-head-for-extinction-47336">Africa's rhinos hog the limelight while their Asian cousins head for extinction</a>
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<p>The majority of the remaining Sumatran rhino are reckoned to be on Sumatra – the largest island of Indonesia – with a handful likely in the wild in Indonesian Borneo. For such a rare species with a scattered distribution that lives in dense mountain forests, evaluating the population size isn’t easy. <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/oryx/article/will-current-conservation-responses-save-the-critically-endangered-sumatran-rhinoceros-dicerorhinus-sumatrensis/E36BC68A94599C82D48D9EB810DFD321">Camera trapping</a> is the main tool for counting this relatively diminutive and shy rhino, but even confidence in the estimate of 80 individuals isn’t high. There may be more but there are likely to be less – possibly <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2017/11/worst-case-scenario-there-could-be-only-30-wild-sumatran-rhinos-left/">as few as 30</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277352/original/file-20190531-69055-1hq9bi5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277352/original/file-20190531-69055-1hq9bi5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277352/original/file-20190531-69055-1hq9bi5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277352/original/file-20190531-69055-1hq9bi5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277352/original/file-20190531-69055-1hq9bi5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277352/original/file-20190531-69055-1hq9bi5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277352/original/file-20190531-69055-1hq9bi5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277352/original/file-20190531-69055-1hq9bi5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sumatran rhino once roamed across Asia, from south-east India, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Thailand to the islands of Sumatra and Borneo. It’s believed the wild Malaysian populations are now extinct. There may be a small population in Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumatran_rhinoceros#cite_note-5">Eric Dinerstein/Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On Sumatra, populations are thought to be isolated as their habitats have <a href="https://theconversation.com/habitat-loss-doesnt-just-affect-species-it-impacts-networks-of-ecological-relationships-117687">fragmented into smaller pockets due to deforestation</a>. The result is inbreeding and means that genetically these sub-populations have a bleak future. They have been extinct in the wild in Malaysia since 2015. Captive Tam and Iman were already a lost cause at that point. With no possibility of reproduction, the Malaysian population of Sumatran rhino have been functionally extinct for many years.</p>
<p>Low population sizes, few rhinos living close together and the isolation of viable habitats have combined with fatal consequences for the Sumatran rhino. If females don’t regularly mate, they have a tendency to develop uterine cysts and growths. It was this that left Iman infertile. This is what <a href="https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/allee-effects-19699394">conservation biologists refer to as an “Allee effect”</a>: the lower a population becomes, the less successful individuals become at reproducing. Ultimately, this <a href="https://conservationbytes.com/2008/08/25/the-extinction-vortex/">leads to an extinction vortex</a>.</p>
<h2>Captive breeding</h2>
<p>Tam’s death may yet encourage an ambitious plan to save the Sumatran rhino – with <a href="https://savesumatranrhinos.org/">a concerted effort</a> to capture as many of the remaining wild rhino as possible, and breed them in captivity.</p>
<p>A young female called Pahu – whose forest habitat was <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/critically-endangered-sumatran-rhino-moved-to-new-home">literally being removed from under her feet</a> by mining companies – was captured in 2018 and is apparently doing well in captivity. Sadly, there is a risk to this strategy. By removing rhino from their habitat, we further reduce the probability of them breeding successfully in the wild.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277393/original/file-20190531-69063-63bai7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277393/original/file-20190531-69063-63bai7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277393/original/file-20190531-69063-63bai7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277393/original/file-20190531-69063-63bai7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277393/original/file-20190531-69063-63bai7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277393/original/file-20190531-69063-63bai7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277393/original/file-20190531-69063-63bai7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mother, Ratu, with four-month-old Andatu at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Way Kambas National Park, Indonesia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumatran_rhinoceros#/media/File:Sumatran_rhinoceros_four_days_old.jpg">International Rhino Foundation/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As an ecologist, captive breeding is something that I find hard to celebrate. But it may be the only hope to save a species that, otherwise, appears doomed to slowly dwindle into extinction.</p>
<p>That said, the breeding success of Sumatran rhino in captivity still isn’t assured. There has been some success in US zoos, but from 45 rhino captured since 1984, only <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/oryx/article/will-current-conservation-responses-save-the-critically-endangered-sumatran-rhinoceros-dicerorhinus-sumatrensis/E36BC68A94599C82D48D9EB810DFD321">four calves have been born</a>. Even geopolitics deals this species a bad hand. Malaysia holds Iman and her eggs – the single surviving captive Sumatran rhino on the island of Borneo – and the sperm of recently deceased Tam. But the country must now collaborate with Indonesia, which holds seven rhino in captivity which have <a href="https://www.savetherhino.org/programmes/the-sumatran-rhino-sanctuary/">so far produced two offspring</a>.</p>
<h2>Back from the dead?</h2>
<p>The last throw of the dice may have to involve something akin to resurrection – using <a href="https://malaysia.news.yahoo.com/death-malaysia-last-male-sumatran-225539255.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAD_kQRJsSBKlJUSaSDDk68L2KSzq0l1A0Dbppp4c9H8kW_qbQ7CDaTExYtSmeVg5Zc3Z2uWm5YpcSesKj9l-EYvSyA6s96xmis7SowVMaFqL-uNv2WDM_3hdI77V9xD6-RfTEVOatbW4TzCqUn7AbM4Ybk82EOKDOQH6CEzRQYat">stored eggs and sperm from rhino</a>, including Iman and Tam, for artifical insemination or IVF in captive surrogates of the same species. Sumatran rhinos are truly unique – <a href="http://www.pachydermjournal.org/index.php/pachy/article/view/464/363">they are the only member of their genus</a>. With no related rhino species, the only surrogate candidate must be another Sumatran rhino. If successful, offspring could potentially come from otherwise lost genes, <a href="https://theconversation.com/hybrid-embryos-raise-hope-of-resurrecting-northern-white-rhino-but-whats-the-point-99249">as has been suggested for the African white rhino</a>. </p>
<p>While the science is developing, “<a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/de-extinction-22997">de-extinction</a>” is still an expensive and unlikely long shot that <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-northern-white-rhino-should-not-be-brought-back-to-life-94153">raises its own practical and ethical dilemmas</a>. If successful, we could end up farming an ecologically dead species. I want wild animals to be in the wild contributing to the ecosystems within which they evolved – not living in zoos forever.</p>
<p>Both modes of rescue – captive breeding and genetic resurrection – are too little, too late, like firefighters taking action when the damage is already too far gone. The longer that society waits to help a declining species, the greater the delay in addressing the driving forces of endangerment, be they poaching, habitat loss, non-native species, or climate change. And the lower the probability of success, and the greater the cost of the attempt.</p>
<p>So, Tam was just one rhino. He was not the last of his species, or even the last male of his species, but he is one more loss from an already limited population. The lower the population size, the greater the impact of losing another individual. Tam is another alarm bell alerting us to our inability to act quickly enough to remove the threats to species, and ultimately to save life on Earth. Every dead Sumatran rhino is now met with publicity and concern. Rightly so, but we need to start getting the conservation action right early enough for it to work.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118103/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jason Gilchrist does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The world mourns the loss of Malaysia’s last male Sumatran rhino. Can anything stop the slide of the species towards extinction?Jason Gilchrist, Ecologist, Edinburgh Napier UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/992492018-07-04T17:05:31Z2018-07-04T17:05:31ZHybrid embryos raise hope of resurrecting northern white rhino – but what’s the point?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226145/original/file-20180704-73303-2u42ze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/northern-white-rhinoceros-ceratotherium-simum-cottoni-756740854?src=AeMQtqEEsatRgEYD3E5lQA-1-23">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Scientists have for the first time <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-04959-2">created hybrid embryos</a> with DNA from the nearly-extinct northern white rhinoceros, an advance that could ultimately lead to the first resurrection of a mega-mammal. But while this scientific achievement could provide a new way to produce future generations of endangered or extinct animals, applying this approach to the white rhino <a href="https://www.savetherhino.org/thorny-issues/advanced-reproductive-technologies-and-priorities-for-rhino-conservation/">does not meet with universal approval</a> among conservationists.</p>
<p>The international team of researchers, led by Professor Thomas Hildebrandt from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, have used an existing assisted reproduction technology developed for horses, and applied it to the white rhino. Eggs and sperm from northern white rhino are in short supply, due to the rarity of the subspecies. So the team also used material from southern white rhino, successfully fertilising southern eggs with sperm from both northern and southern subspecies, proving that the process works.</p>
<p>Only seven out of 314 fertilised eggs developed into embryos – a roughly 2% success rate – but the research demonstrated three important steps. First, that rhino eggs can be captured from live females. Second, that they can be fertilised using IVF and developed to the “blastocyst” early embryonic stage (ready for transfer to a surrogate female) – and that this can be done as a hybrid of southern and northern rhino. And third, that the resulting embryos can be frozen without damage.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225903/original/file-20180703-116132-g123up.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225903/original/file-20180703-116132-g123up.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225903/original/file-20180703-116132-g123up.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225903/original/file-20180703-116132-g123up.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225903/original/file-20180703-116132-g123up.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225903/original/file-20180703-116132-g123up.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225903/original/file-20180703-116132-g123up.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An anaesthetised female white rhino during oocyte collection.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hildebrandt et al 2018</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This process is technically very challenging. A special device was developed to enable the operators to extract oocytes (unfertilised eggs) from the ovaries of anaesthetised female southern white rhino from a number of European zoos. This is a three-person job requiring a steady hand that can guide a needle of just over 1 millimetre in diameter and almost 1 metre in length into the reproductive system via the rectum to capture the eggs.</p>
<p>The next step will be to transfer three of the embryos that have been frozen to the uterus of surrogate southern white rhino for gestation and birth. This final step toward the birth of a calf containing northern white rhino DNA is no small step, as artificial insemination in rhino has rarely been attempted. San Diego Zoo is currently evaluating six surrogacy candidates, and has already successfully <a href="http://zoonooz.sandiegozoo.org/2018/05/17/southern-white-rhino-at-san-diego-zoo-safari-park-pregnant-through-artificial-insemination/">artificially inseminated</a> one with southern white rhino sperm.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226128/original/file-20180704-73306-16yx656.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226128/original/file-20180704-73306-16yx656.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226128/original/file-20180704-73306-16yx656.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226128/original/file-20180704-73306-16yx656.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226128/original/file-20180704-73306-16yx656.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226128/original/file-20180704-73306-16yx656.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226128/original/file-20180704-73306-16yx656.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Can the research lead to a self-sustaining wild rhino population?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jason Gilchrist</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The four other embryos produced were used to evaluate the potential for creating sperm and eggs from the genetic material of northern white rhino whose sex cells are not already available. While this only worked for southern white rhino embryos and not the hybrids, it did demonstrate the method could be successful.</p>
<p>As the first demonstration of this process working for rhino, the research is significant, impressive and exciting. It offers a possibility to rescue the genes of a subspecies that, following the death of the last male northern white rhino <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-43468066">earlier this year</a>, is now represented by just <a href="http://www.olpejetaconservancy.org/wildlife/rhinos/northern-white-rhinos">two elderly females</a>. And if the method works for the rhino, it should be possible to extend it to other endangered large mammals.</p>
<h2>Too late for resurrection</h2>
<p>The key question of whether scientists can produce pure northern white rhino embryos using this technique remains unanswered. But, even if it is possible, what would be the point? Ultimately, to be useful, these manipulative techniques need to increase the chance of survival of endangered (wild) animal populations. Otherwise, artificially engineered fertilisation and the management of genes has little value for nature conservation.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225900/original/file-20180703-116143-1ckvmtg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225900/original/file-20180703-116143-1ckvmtg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225900/original/file-20180703-116143-1ckvmtg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225900/original/file-20180703-116143-1ckvmtg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225900/original/file-20180703-116143-1ckvmtg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225900/original/file-20180703-116143-1ckvmtg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225900/original/file-20180703-116143-1ckvmtg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Possible genetic relationship between northern (red) and southern (green) white rhino.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://genome.cshlp.org/content/early/2018/05/16/gr.227603.117">Tunstall et al 2018</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To my mind, the time to save the northern white rhino <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-northern-white-rhino-should-not-be-brought-back-to-life-94153">has passed</a>. If we could not save it when it was here (the last wild northern white rhino is <a href="https://genome.cshlp.org/content/early/2018/05/16/gr.227603.117">thought to have disappeared</a> around 2006) it seems unlikely we could conserve a resurrected wild population now or in the foreseeable future. The purpose of simply preserving the subspecies’ genes in a new hybrid rhino (in captivity), and whether it would be worth all the effort, is unclear.</p>
<p><a href="https://genome.cshlp.org/content/early/2018/05/16/gr.227603.117">Recent research</a> by Dr Tate Tunstall of the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research and colleagues indicates that there may be enough genetic diversity in the frozen northern white rhino material (from only 12 individuals) to provide a suitably diverse founder population for resurrection. They also showed that the genetic differences between the northern and southern subspecies may be the result of evolutionary adaptations to different habitats.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225899/original/file-20180703-116132-1wguvty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225899/original/file-20180703-116132-1wguvty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225899/original/file-20180703-116132-1wguvty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225899/original/file-20180703-116132-1wguvty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225899/original/file-20180703-116132-1wguvty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225899/original/file-20180703-116132-1wguvty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225899/original/file-20180703-116132-1wguvty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Historical distributions of the northern (red) and southern (green) white rhino.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://genome.cshlp.org/content/early/2018/05/16/gr.227603.117">Tunstall et al 2018</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>An alternative strategy to resurrection would be to secure a safe habitat in the former northern white rhino’s range of central East Africa, populate it with southern white rhino and let natural selection run its course. The introduced rhino population would be expected to evolve over generations to adapt to their new environment and fill the ecological role left vacant by the northern white rhino.</p>
<p>There are already southern white rhino currently living and breeding in <a href="http://www.rhinofund.org/">Uganda at the Ziwa Sanctuary</a>. Restoration ecologists have similarly <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(11)00346-0">replaced extinct giant tortoises with related species</a> in a process called taxon substitution. Taxon substitution using the southern white rhino would be simpler and more cost-effective than manipulating genes and introducing manufactured hybrids, and would likely have a higher probability of success.</p>
<p>I am concerned that new technologies, such as the creation of these hybrid rhino embryos, are distracting us from on-the-ground conservation and dealing with the root causes of endangerment. There is a growing pervasive psychology that we need to preserve genes for some utopian future. The desperate logic of mixing subspecies and applying assisted reproduction technology is also being discussed <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/05/geneticists-its-time-to-mix-the-sumatran-rhino-subspecies/">regarding the Sumatran rhino</a>.</p>
<p>Saving bits of dead animal now to bring back species (or subspecies) in the future perpetuates the delusion that everything will be okay at some point. We need action now. <a href="https://theconversation.com/only-a-jurassic-park-style-intervention-can-now-save-the-northern-white-rhino-51333">Jurassic Park-esque scientific advances</a> will only work if we save habitats, stop pollution, constrain invasive species, reverse climate change and halt poaching. Otherwise, I fear that we will still be loading samples onto the frozen ark as the lights go off on an otherwise empty Planet Earth.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99249/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jason Gilchrist does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Scientists have created embryos from the eggs of southern white rhino and sperm from their northern counterparts.Jason Gilchrist, Ecologist, Edinburgh Napier UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/941532018-04-05T14:59:14Z2018-04-05T14:59:14ZThe northern white rhino should not be brought back to life<p>A geriatric semi-captive rhino died in Kenya recently. “Sudan”, a 45-year-old <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-43468066">northern white rhino</a> was put to sleep as vets decided, after months of ill health, that his condition had deteriorated to the point where the levels of pain and quality of life were unacceptable.</p>
<p>From a conservation perspective, this does not sound like a big deal. Sudan was one old rhino. He was well past breeding age. So why did his death make headlines?</p>
<p>Sudan was the last surviving male northern white rhinoceros, a subspecies known to scientists as <em>Ceratotherium simum cottoni</em> that went extinct in the wild about 20 years ago thanks to poaching. He was captured and removed from the wild in 1975, the last wild-caught northern white rhino. Sudan’s daughter Najin, and granddaughter Fatu, are now the only two left, and they are both old and incapable of reproduction even if they had a mate.</p>
<p>It is a strange situation. On the one hand, it matters a lot. The northern white rhino is extinct, it just doesn’t know it yet. Conservationists refer to such populations as “<a href="https://conservationbytes.com/2008/08/30/classics-the-living-dead/">the living dead</a>”. </p>
<p>On the other hand, does it really matter? Despite persistent misreporting in the media (and some debate <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0009703">among scientists</a>) the northern white is generally recognised as “only” a subspecies of the white rhinoceros. It is survived by its relative the southern white rhino, <em>Ceratotherium simum simum</em>, around <a href="https://www.savetherhino.org/rhino_info/rhino_population_figures">20,000</a> of which remain. The species as a whole is not currently endangered.</p>
<h2>Resurrection?</h2>
<p>The importance of Sudan’s actual death remains unclear, partly because it seems increasingly possible to bring his subspecies back to life. The northern white rhino may be resurrected by <a href="https://theconversation.com/only-a-jurassic-park-style-intervention-can-now-save-the-northern-white-rhino-51333">Jurassic Park-style technology</a>. That would require conservationists to collect eggs from the remaining females and develop IVF techniques that are as yet unproven on rhino.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213415/original/file-20180405-189830-yhvh2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213415/original/file-20180405-189830-yhvh2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213415/original/file-20180405-189830-yhvh2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213415/original/file-20180405-189830-yhvh2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213415/original/file-20180405-189830-yhvh2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213415/original/file-20180405-189830-yhvh2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213415/original/file-20180405-189830-yhvh2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213415/original/file-20180405-189830-yhvh2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hand rearing orphaned baby southern white rhino, South Africa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jason Gilchrist</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>DNA has been stored from 13 northern white rhino that died in recent years, including Sudan, and it would be combined with similarly-frozen eggs and sperm. The embryos produced would then be implanted within <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/zoo.21284">surrogate female southern white rhino</a>. I recently spoke to Professor <a href="http://www.izw-berlin.de/prof-dr-hildebrandt-thomas.html">Thomas Hildebrandt</a>, a global leader in conservation reproduction and pioneer of this technique, and he was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/23/scientists-store-of-rhino-semen-could-save-rare-species">confident it would work</a>.</p>
<p>If these <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/stem-cell-plan-aims-to-bring-rhino-back-from-brink-of-extinction-1.19849">optimistic plans</a> play out, the first northern white rhino calf born since the year 2000 could be produced before the death of the two remaining females. An alternative would be to produce a genetically-engineered baby rhino that is a hybrid of both northern and southern species. If plans to <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/mammoth-woolly-resurrection-dna-genome-elephant-embryo-extinct-animals-back-to-life-a7583826.html">resurrect the extinct woolly mammoth</a> via hybridisation with Indian elephants are possible, then a white rhino hybrid is not unachievable.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, we are talking not about saving a subspecies from extinction, but resurrecting an extinct subspecies – a much more challenging proposition.</p>
<h2>Southern white rhinos to the rescue</h2>
<p>The second issue, that clouds the importance of the almost certain extinction of the northern white rhino, is that the white rhino survives through its southern subspecies which may (with help) be able to replace the northern white rhino in its historical range across central Africa. In doing so, it could fill the vacant ecological niche.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213416/original/file-20180405-189798-dnvi85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213416/original/file-20180405-189798-dnvi85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213416/original/file-20180405-189798-dnvi85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213416/original/file-20180405-189798-dnvi85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213416/original/file-20180405-189798-dnvi85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213416/original/file-20180405-189798-dnvi85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213416/original/file-20180405-189798-dnvi85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213416/original/file-20180405-189798-dnvi85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Most southern white rhino are found in South Africa where they are under sustained pressure from poaching for their horn.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jason Gilchrist</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We, as a society, have to be pragmatic and economic with the resources available to protect wild animals. Can we justify spending an estimated <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-43468066">£7.1m (US$10m)</a> to try to bring back to life a subspecies from stored DNA with limited genetic diversity? Even if the animals were all alive and breeding, there would still be fears of the “<a href="https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/news/160201_cheetahs">founder effect</a>” that can occur when a population is started from just a few individuals, with some traits lost and others dominant within the resulting population.</p>
<p>As a near-extinct subspecies, the conservation argument for continued investment to save the population is based upon whatever adaptive genetic diversity it holds that differentiates it from the other subspecies. But it is not clear exactly what genetically-useful traits are found in the sample of 13 northern white rhinos that are not also present in the southern white.</p>
<p>To be direct, if millions of pounds can be raised to try and resurrect the northern white rhino, should it not instead be invested in protecting the southern white rhino (still at <a href="https://theconversation.com/chopping-off-the-rhinos-horn-and-the-war-on-wildlife-crime-33427">risk from poaching</a>)? Or alternatively, direct the money towards even more vulnerable <a href="https://theconversation.com/africas-rhinos-hog-the-limelight-while-their-asian-cousins-head-for-extinction-47336">Asian rhinos</a>.</p>
<h2>Living museum exhibits</h2>
<p>It is easy to see why cutting edge reproductive technology is so <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/20/sudan-northern-white-rhino-dead-species-endangered-species-conservationists">appealing</a> now that the planet’s sixth mass extinction crisis is well under way.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213420/original/file-20180405-189795-ic5yxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213420/original/file-20180405-189795-ic5yxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213420/original/file-20180405-189795-ic5yxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213420/original/file-20180405-189795-ic5yxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213420/original/file-20180405-189795-ic5yxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213420/original/file-20180405-189795-ic5yxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213420/original/file-20180405-189795-ic5yxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213420/original/file-20180405-189795-ic5yxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A greater one-horned rhino in a zoo. Only about 3,500 individuals remain in the wild in Asia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jason Gilchrist</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the only economic and practical long-term solution to biodiversity loss is to conserve wildlife in the wild and to prevent it from reaching the sorry state of the northern white rhino. After all, if humans cannot save a species in nature while it is alive, what future for animals that we manufacture? My worry is that they would simply be living museum exhibits, destined to live out their lives in zoos, with habitat loss or poaching preventing life in the wild. Where would this end? Do we want to repopulate the world with lab-produced engineered organisms? </p>
<p>It is difficult to be positive about our ability to manage these incredible animals to survival. We have already failed the northern white rhino, let us ensure that we do not let down the remaining rhinoceros species and all the other endangered animals out there that need our help.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94153/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jason Gilchrist does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Rhino resurrection is tempting, but if humans cannot save a species in nature, what future for animals that we manufacture?Jason Gilchrist, Ecologist, Edinburgh Napier UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/827732017-08-21T19:05:20Z2017-08-21T19:05:20ZWhy allowing the sale of horn stockpiles is a setback for rhinos in the wild<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182806/original/file-20170821-4952-k5p9cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa lost over 1000 rhinos to poaching last year.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A South African court has <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-21/rhino-horn-auction-by-world-s-biggest-breeder-to-go-ahead">ordered</a> the government to release a permit to the world’s <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/kwazulu-natal/meet-the-worlds-largest-rhino-breeder-2064943">largest rhino breeder</a>, John Hume. The permit will allow him to host a 3-day auction of his stockpiled rhino horn to local buyers. </p>
<p>Hume is the world’s largest private rhino breeder. He owns 1500 rhino, just over a twentieth of the total number believed still to be <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/2017-06-24-exclusive-500kg-of-rhino-horn-up-for-grabs-as-south-african-rhino-hosts-first-ever-online-global-auction/">in the wild</a>. South Africa <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/06/south-africa-lifts-ban-on-domestic-rhino-horn-sales">lost over 1000 rhinos</a> to poaching last year, predominantly in the Kruger Park and in KwaZulu-Natal. Hume says that the proceeds of the auction will go towards protecting his herd, which he says currently costs him <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/26/rhino-breeder-auction-horns-south-africa-rhinoceros">USD$170,000 a month.</a></p>
<p>Hume had been granted a permit, but it was withdrawn by the country’s Department of Environmental Affairs. A South African <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/06/south-africa-lifts-ban-on-domestic-rhino-horn-sales">Constitutional Court ruling in April</a> lifted a moratorium on the domestic rhino horn trade, upholding a previous High Court ruling. Hume then filed another court application to have his permit reinstated, which was upheld on Sunday. Such permits allow the buying and selling of rhino horn provided that the horns remain in the country after the sale.</p>
<p>Both the High Court ruling and the more recent Constitutional Court ruling are disappointing. While the moratorium was lifted on procedural grounds, the substantive case for a moratorium is profound. There is no evidence of a domestic market for rhino horn. In addition, a domestic trade contradicts the rationale of an international ban.</p>
<p>It therefore seems specious at best to argue for a domestic trade for conservation purposes. The only rationale for purchasing rhino horn in South Africa would be to sell it on to markets in China and Vietnam. The price of horn in those countries is estimated to be in <a href="https://theconversation.com/chopping-off-the-rhinos-horn-and-the-war-on-wildlife-crime-33427">the region of USD$60,000/kg.</a> </p>
<p>Hume has been banking on being able to sell his horn, or see the huge amount he invested in breeding be sunk for nought. He has fought hard to be allowed to sell horn from anaesthetised rhinos that <a href="https://theconversation.com/dehorning-rhinos-why-there-may-be-a-case-for-doing-it-64902">have been dehorned</a>.</p>
<p>He has won the court battle. But the rhino horn auction that has been permitted by the court is a serious setback in the fight against poaching and the probability of wild rhino survival. The chances of the horns remaining in the country is next to zero.</p>
<h2>The arguments for and against</h2>
<p>The case for selling off rhino horn is based on two arguments. </p>
<p>Firstly, that without private rhino ownership, the species would be even more imperilled. Private property, according to South Africa’s constitution, should allow one to buy and sell as one pleases. This view defines rhinos as a purely private, commercial good. </p>
<p>The second argument is that an international ban has been ineffective in combating rhino poaching. Therefore, the only way to overcome the negative effects of high prices, which induce poaching, is to flood the market with horn that is cut from a cultivated herd.</p>
<p>The first argument is philosophical and has severe practical implications. Rhinos are our collective heritage – a public good in one of the purest senses of that term. The joy derived from viewing rhinos in the wild – public parks – is indivisible. To reduce rhinos to purely commercial products is to destroy the argument for public parks and the public protection of wildlife. </p>
<p>Hume and his supporters would argue that this is a false dichotomy. But they have failed to make the case that flooding the market with horn from commercially bred rhinos will help to maintain the species in the wild. This is partly because of the flaw with the second argument.</p>
<p>The idea that commercially bred rhino horn will flood the market, depress prices and prevent further poaching is <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-04-13-op-ed-trading-blows-over-trading-rhino-horn/#.WZqGg617EUE">without basis in fact</a>. The international ban on rhino horn trade appeared to be most effective until a sudden shock hit the market – the escalation of demand from Vietnam <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-the-illicit-rhino-horn-trade-escalating-76265">in around 2006</a>. Before that, rhino poaching in South Africa was negligible. </p>
<p>It is disingenuous, at best, to argue that the ban against horn trading is responsible for the upsurge in poaching. There is also no evidence that the market can be satiated by attempting to flood it. The risk of exploding currently dormant demand is too high. It also seems that traders like Hume want it both ways – to sell the horn for a price that earns a handsome profit but not so high that it incentivises poaching. Where this equilibrium is cannot be ascertained. So, it’s hard to understand how the argument can be sustained.</p>
<p>A government whose general bureaucratic efficacy is questionable surely cannot be trusted to regulate rhino horn in the manner supposed by the court. If one considers, for instance, that South Africa’s State Security Minister, David Mahlobo, has been <a href="http://www.news24.com/Video/SouthAfrica/News/watch-rhino-horn-smuggler-calls-david-mahlobo-his-friend-20161116">implicated</a> in rhino horn smuggling, the odds are not promising.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82773/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ross Harvey has written in his personal capacity</span></em></p>The rhino horn auction in South Africa is a serious setback in the fight against poaching and the survival of wild rhinos. The chances of the horns remaining in the country are next to zero.Ross Harvey, Senior Researcher in Natural Resource Governance (Africa), South African Institute of International AffairsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/778062017-05-23T14:40:22Z2017-05-23T14:40:22ZWave of rhino killings points to shifting poaching patterns in South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170363/original/file-20170522-7329-l1000b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">KwaZulu-Natal is home to smaller wildlife sanctuaries and private game reserves like Hluhluwe-iMfolozi where poaching has increased.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Keith Somerville</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Rhino poaching in South Africa continues to be a problem. In recent months poaching incidents have spiked in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park in the northeastern province of KwaZulu-Natal. In one of the worst attacks <a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/nine-rhinos-found-massacred-at-hluhluwe-imfolozi-park-20170513">nine rhinos</a> were found dead, bringing to 23 the number killed so far in just one month.</p>
<p><a href="http://talkinghumanities.blogs.sas.ac.uk/2017/03/21/has-the-tide-turned-for-south-africas-rhino-poaching-crisis/">Earlier this year</a> South Africa’s Minister of Environmental Affairs, <a href="https://www.environment.gov.za/aboutus/biographies">Edna Molewa</a>, announced triumphantly that in 2016 fewer rhinos had been poached than in 2015. Her statistics showed that nationally 121 fewer animals were poached in 2016 (1,054) compared with 2015 (1,175). </p>
<p>But my <a href="https://talkinghumanities.blogs.sas.ac.uk/2017/03/21/has-the-tide-turned-for-south-africas-rhino-poaching-crisis/">research</a> into the evolution of poaching operations in South Africa – which I shared round about the same time – showed that while fewer had been killed, poaching efforts had simply shifted locations. In particular, illegal killings in areas outside South Africa’s largest game reserve, the Kruger National Park, have been on the rise. </p>
<p>There are at most 5,458 black rhino, 21,085 white rhino, 3,500 Asian one-horned rhino, 100 Sumatran rhino and between 61 and 63 Javan rhino <a href="https://www.savetherhino.org/rhino_info/rhino_population_figures">left in the wild</a>. South Africa is home to 75% of Africa’s rhino with between 19,000 and 20,000 white rhino and about <a href="https://www.savetherhino.org/rhino_info/thorny_issues/poaching_crisis_in_south_africa">2,000 black rhino</a>.</p>
<h2>Successes in Kruger increase jeopardy elsewhere</h2>
<p>Protection in the Kruger National Park has increased through the establishment of an <a href="https://talkinghumanities.blogs.sas.ac.uk/2017/03/21/has-the-tide-turned-for-south-africas-rhino-poaching-crisis/">“intensive protection zone”</a> in the centre and south of the 19,485 km² park. This has reduced the number of killings.</p>
<p>But, to some extent, the poaching epidemic has simply changed focus and location. KwaZulu-Natal is home to smaller wildlife sanctuaries and reserves as well as private game reserves. All have substantial numbers of rhino which is why they have become the focus for poachers and criminal syndicates that run the illegal trade.</p>
<p>Zimbabwe and Namibia have been hit too. There are even fears that Botswana could be next on the <a href="http://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?aid=67506&dir=2017/march/17">hit list</a>. </p>
<p>Rhinos under threat in South Africa have been relocated to the country’s well-protected national parks and private reserves. Botswana lost most of its rhinos to poachers in the 1970s and 1980s. But the success of the wildlife department and the Botswana Defence Force in combating poaching meant that it became a safe haven. In December 2014, Botswana had <a href="https://conservationaction.co.za/media-articles/botswana-budget-cuts-imperil-anti-poaching/">154 rhinos</a> and 25 more were translocated in 2015 and 2016.</p>
<p>In March this year, another 12 were sent from South Africa to the Okavango Delta, with 88 more due to follow this year and possibly another 100 sometime in the future. </p>
<p>But now their security is threatened. Budget cuts have forced Botswana’s Department of Wildlife and National Parks to cut funding for rhino protection. This has affected the elite Rhino Squad, set up to protect the relocated rhinos. It has even run out of money to buy <a href="http://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?aid=67506&dir=2017/march/17">fuel for its vehicles</a>.</p>
<p>Botswana’s Environment Minister Tshekedi Khama II has bemoaned the <a href="https://conservationaction.co.za/media-articles/botswana-budget-cuts-imperil-anti-poaching/">lack of resources</a> and the poor response from donors: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you have given us money to establish the Rhino Squad, it will come with operational costs. We are always at war with poachers and we try to do as much as we can, with little.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The lack of funding could seriously imperil the relocation programme, which is reliant on security and well-resourced anti-poaching. </p>
<p>There has already been a surge in <a href="https://talkinghumanities.blogs.sas.ac.uk/2016/10/06/botswanas-elephants-and-conservation-are-things-starting-to-fall-apart/">elephant poaching in northern Botswana.</a>. Elephant poachers would see rhino horn – worth over $60,000 per kg compared with $1,000-$1,200 for ivory – as even more lucrative contraband than tusks.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170367/original/file-20170522-7327-zu7br8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170367/original/file-20170522-7327-zu7br8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170367/original/file-20170522-7327-zu7br8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170367/original/file-20170522-7327-zu7br8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170367/original/file-20170522-7327-zu7br8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170367/original/file-20170522-7327-zu7br8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170367/original/file-20170522-7327-zu7br8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170367/original/file-20170522-7327-zu7br8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rhino horn – from a dehorned rhino in South Africa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Keith Somerville</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>KwaZulu-Natal bears the brunt</h2>
<p>If Botswana could be a target, Namibia and Zimbabwe have already felt the effects of the shifting poaching operations. The numbers <a href="http://www.global-geneva.com/is-a-legal-trade-the-only-way-to-save-africas-remaining-rhinos/">killed in Namibia</a> have risen in recent years, reaching 80 in 2015 having been down at 25 the year before. Zimbabwe lost 50 rhinos in 2015, double the previous year’s level. Figures for 2016 have not been released. </p>
<p>But it is South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province that is now bearing the brunt of renewed rhino poaching. Ezemvelo’s official 2017 statistics show that 89 rhino have been poached in KZN province so far this year, compared with 55 rhino this time last year. This is a rise of 48%, attributed to Mpumalanga poaching syndicates who were operating in the Kruger National Park targeting Zululand reserves because of increased security and anti-poaching in their own province.</p>
<p><a href="http://talkinghumanities.blogs.sas.ac.uk/2016/09/29/south-africas-rhino-poaching-problem/">My visit</a> to Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Reserve in September last year confirmed that 95 rhinos had been poached in the first nine months of the year. The <a href="http://www.kznwildlife.com/ezemvelo/poached-rhino-statistics.html">latest statistics</a> for 2016 showed 140 killed across the province (133 in protected parks) between January and November 2016. But with 89 poached across KZN in the first four months and killings up by 48%, the province could be looking at well over 200 dead in 2017 if the trend continues. </p>
<p>Cedric Coetzee, head of rhino protection in the park, believes that while it might take poachers days to track a rhino in Kruger National Park, the high density of animals in the KwaZulu-Natal reserve meant they might only spend two to three hours there before killing a rhino and escaping with its horns. </p>
<p>One thing that remains to be seen and analysed in detail is the effect that the unbanning of domestic trade in rhino horn in South Africa will have. In April this year South Africa’s Constitutional Court refused an attempt by the government to overturn an earlier court suspension of the government moratorium of the legal trade in horn imposed in 2009. </p>
<p>The Environment Minister has put out draft regulations for a legal trade. This would control domestic commerce and allow the export for personal use (not commercial exports which are banned by CITES) of a maximum of two horns. The draft is vague. But it was welcomed by the <a href="http://www.kznwildlife.com/ezemvelo/poached-rhino-statistics.html">Private Rhino Owners Association</a> in South Africa, who want a legal trade. <a href="http://www.bornfree.org.uk/campaigns/wildlife-trade/rhino-poaching/">Conservation organisations</a> which oppose any trade in wildlife products were highly critical of the court decision and the South African government’s draft legislation for a legal trade. </p>
<p>The outlook for southern Africa’s rhinos remains threatening. The trade issue is confused and the South African government under President Jacob Zuma hardly <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-ancs-path-to-corruption-was-set-in-south-africas-1994-transition-64774">has a reputation</a> for administrative competence, integrity and far-sightedness. </p>
<p>The police and wildlife authorities struggle to deal with poaching and smuggling. The ability of criminal syndicates to evolve their operations to take account of improvements in security in some areas suggests a shifting and complex war between anti-poaching units and the poachers, weighted in favour of the killers and smugglers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77806/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Somerville does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province is bearing the brunt of renewed rhino poaching efforts. This is a result of increased security and anti-poaching in the Kruger National Park.Keith Somerville, Visiting Professor, University of KentLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/665102016-10-05T19:24:29Z2016-10-05T19:24:29ZThe ban on rhino horn sales leaves open the question of conservation funding<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140323/original/image-20161004-30459-hmcg5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Swaziland is home to 73 white rhino.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://commonwealth-opinion.blogs.sas.ac.uk/2016/swaziland-thinking-the-unthinkable-to-save-rhinos-by-legalising-trade-in-horn/">Swaziland’s proposal</a> to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) to be able to trade in rhino horn has been decisively defeated. Member states at Cop17 <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/10/wildlife-watch-vote-rhino-horn-sales-illegal/">overwhelmingly</a> rejected the mountain kingdom’s request to be allowed to sell its stocks of rhino horn and small annual quantities of horn from natural morality.</p>
<p>Swaziland, which is home to 73 white rhino and an estimated <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/28/swaziland-unveils-plan-to-legalise-rhino-horn-to-pay-for-anti-poaching-efforts">18 black rhino</a>, wanted to use funds from the sale to increase conservation measures and provide incentives for local people to give their support to the efforts. Its <a href="https://cites.org/sites/default/files/eng/cop/17/prop/SW_Rhino.pdf">official bid</a> to CITES said that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Proceeds from the sale of stocks would have raised approximately $9.9 million at a wholesale price of $30,000 per kg. That would have been placed in an endowment fund to yield approximately $600,000 annually.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>South African private rhino owners also want a legal trade and are currently fighting their own government <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/160523-rhino-horn-ban-south-africa-cites-smuggling-john-hume-rhino-ranching-swaziland/">in the courts</a> to get a moratorium on domestic trade in horn lifted. </p>
<p>Western conservation and animal welfare NGOs such as the <a href="http://www.ifaw.org/international/news/cites-parties-reject-swaziland-request-trade-white-rhino-horn">International Fund for Animal Welfare</a> were jubilant about the result. </p>
<p>In my view the outcome presents two challenges. The first is that it remains unclear how the fight against poaching and rhino conservation can be financed sustainably without a legal trade. The second is that the ban on all trade has been in place for 39 years and has not led to an improvement in protection. Demand for rhino horn has continued to <a href="https://www.savetherhino.org/rhino_info/thorny_issues/poaching_crisis_in_south_africa">rise</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/16/rhino-horn-demand-in-vietnam-drops-by-more-than-33-in-one-year">prices</a> have gone up. These have served to encourage poach. New methods are needed but there is little sign of any being developed.</p>
<h2>Who pays</h2>
<p>One of the arguments in favour of loosening the ban is that the proceeds could be directed to communities. Without this they could become increasingly alienated which in turn would increase the likelihood that they will help poachers. </p>
<p>In addition, everyone agrees that conservation efforts need to be stepped up, and better surveillance introduced. But as Tom Milliken of the international trade monitoring group TRAFFIC <a href="http://www.startribune.com/swaziland-s-bid-to-sell-rhino-horn-fails-at-un-meeting/395649761/">asked,</a> after the vote: who will pay for it?</p>
<p>In my view NGOs wield disproportionate influence in the debate. They are a major source of funds for conservation and can use funding - or the denial of it - to persuade countries to adopt anti-trade policies. The effect of this is that states like Swaziland, Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa, which have the majority of the world’s rhino and are struggling against a severe poaching epidemic that <a href="https://www.savetherhino.org/rhino_info/poaching_statistics">kills around 1250 rhinos</a> across the continent every year, are left to pick up the bill.</p>
<h2>What next</h2>
<p>The CITES vote against legal trade comes at a time of optimism that the rate of <a href="https://theconversation.com/rhino-poaching-in-south-africa-are-numbers-falling-or-focus-shifting-65358">poaching is being reduced.</a>. Before the CITES meeting 702 rhinos had been killed in South Africa as a whole this year, compared with 796 in the same period <a href="http://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/minister-releases-rhino-poaching-figures">last year</a>.</p>
<p>But this may be a brief respite. There is growing evidence that poaching has not been halted but diverted from South Africa’s Kruger National Park, where poaching numbers are down, to other areas, <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/kwazulu-natal/six-kzn-rhino-killed-on-rhino-day-2072033">particularly the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi park in Kwa-Zulu Natal</a>.</p>
<p>What is clear is that the illegal trade in rhino horn, which <a href="http://www.earthtouchnews.com/environmental-crime/illegal-trade/top-10-shocking-figures-of-the-illegal-rhino-horn-trade">fetches $65,000</a> a kilo in Vietnam and China, persists.</p>
<p>Poor rural dwellers, former professional hunters, corrupt ex-staff of wildlife parks and even some current wildlife personnel are part of a complex mix of people who work with criminal syndicates to poach rhinos and smuggle their horn. Anti-poaching patrols can kill or catch poachers but have had little success in smashing the syndicates.</p>
<p>A more realistic mix of approaches is needed. To me the only answer in the long run would be to bite the bullet by adopting regulated trade that brings in funds to make conservation self-sustainable. </p>
<p>The rejection of the Swazi bid will not end attempts to find solutions involving the reintroduction of legal and regulated trade, despite the emotively-expressed opposition of wildlife NGOs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66510/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Somerville received funding from the Comanis Foundation to undertake a research trip to South Africa and Swaziland to look into the issues surrounding the rhino horn trade proposals.
</span></em></p>Swaziland hoped to be allowed to legally trade rhino horns but the idea was rejected by vote at the CITES conference.Keith Somerville, Visiting Professor, University of KentLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/653582016-09-15T22:26:16Z2016-09-15T22:26:16ZRhino poaching in South Africa: are numbers falling or focus shifting?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137645/original/image-20160913-4980-1ul6imq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rhino poaching in South Africa's Kruger National Park has decreased this year but it has increased in other regions.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa recently triumphantly <a href="http://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/minister-releases-rhino-poaching-figures">announced</a> that rhino poaching is on the decline in the Kruger National Park. South Africa’s Minister of Environmental Affairs, Edna Molewa, said 702 rhinos had been killed in the country as a whole so far this year, compared with 796 in the same period last year. </p>
<p>She also announced that between January and August this year a total of <a href="http://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/minister-releases-rhino-poaching-figures">458 poached rhino</a> carcasses were found in Kruger compared to 557 in the same period last year. This represents a 17.8% decline. The park is the hardest <a href="http://www.krugerpark.co.za/krugerpark-times-6-1-shoking-rise-in-rhino-poaching-25183.html">hit by poaching</a> and the numbers look like good news for rhinos and conservation.</p>
<p>But is there really a downward trend? Or is it just a re-orientation by poachers in the face of stepped-up security in the Kruger Park and the reflection of the steady decline in South African rhino numbers <a href="https://www.savetherhino.org/rhino_info/thorny_issues/poaching_crisis_in_south_africa">due to poaching</a>?</p>
<h2>Poaches adopt new strategies</h2>
<p>Chief Ranger Funda, who heads the protection teams at the Kruger National Park, told me that despite the falling carcass numbers, the number of incursions by poachers had increased by a worrying 27.87%. That is a staggering 2,115 for the first eight months of 2016. He told me that about half the poachers who entered the park were caught by rangers.</p>
<p>So far this year <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2016/09/11/Significant-increase-in-number-of-arrests-for-rhino-poaching-Molewa">414 suspected poachers</a> have been arrested. Around 177 of these were in Kruger and 237 in the rest of the country. The figures don’t tally, unless Funda’s estimate includes a significant number of the poachers caught and released without charge or perhaps killed in contacts with the rangers. </p>
<p>The number of incursions suggest there has been no let up in poaching. It may be that poachers are finding rhino harder to find. Kruger’s chief ranger said that the park had deployed very high security in an intensive protection zone. This zone, in the southern third of the park and along the border with Mozambique, is a regular route for poachers entering the park.</p>
<p>He added that poachers were now often entering the park posing as tourists rather than sneaking across the unfenced border with Mozambique. Poachers were also increasingly armed with high-powered Czech hunting rifles with sound moderators. These, he believed, had been brought into South Africa from Mozambique, where they had been supplied to wildlife officials but then illegally sold on to poachers.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137643/original/image-20160913-4980-ipxylz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137643/original/image-20160913-4980-ipxylz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137643/original/image-20160913-4980-ipxylz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137643/original/image-20160913-4980-ipxylz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137643/original/image-20160913-4980-ipxylz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137643/original/image-20160913-4980-ipxylz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137643/original/image-20160913-4980-ipxylz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137643/original/image-20160913-4980-ipxylz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This single piece of rhino horn, from a non-lethally dehorned rhino, is worth about $40,000.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Keith Somerville</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Problem shifts elsewhere</h2>
<p>Molewa did briefly note that although poaching had declined in Kruger it had increased in other areas. The number of carcasses found has increased in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Reserve in Kwa-Zulu Natal. The director of the reserve, Jabulani Ngubane, told me that 95 rhino had been poached in the reserve since the beginning of the year, a big increase on last year. The reserve has about 4,500 white rhino and 500 black rhinos. </p>
<p>Cedric Coetzee, the head of rhino protection for Hluhluwe-iMfolozi, told me that he feared that poachers could shift to his reserve. One reason for this was the success of security measures at Kruger. The other was that the high density of animals in his reserve – about three rhino to a square kilometre – meant that a killing could take only two to three hours. </p>
<h2>What does the future hold?</h2>
<p>If you add the new figures released by the minister the number of rhino killed <a href="https://www.savetherhino.org/rhino_info/thorny_issues/poaching_crisis_in_south_africa">for their horns</a> in South Africa since 2006 stands at 5,763. The number is undoubtedly higher given that rhino would certainly have been killed but carcasses never found. </p>
<p>The Kruger park record looks better, in spite of a noticeable increase in elephant poaching. But Hluhluwe-iMfolozi is now under threat. With rhino horn fetching around $60,000 per kg in the booming markets <a href="http://www.earthtouchnews.com/environmental-crime/illegal-trade/top-10-shocking-figures-of-the-illegal-rhino-horn-trade">in Vietnam and China</a>, the temptation to poach is great. Rhino horn is a lucrative alternative for poor people struggling to feed, clothe and educate their families, as it is for greedy white professional hunters, former parks officials and even qualified veterinarians.</p>
<p>Security is being stepped up, but park officials admit the use of intelligence is disorganised. And many of the army and police units sent to supplement park rangers had no experience of working in thick bush full of potentially dangerous animals. </p>
<p>One option is some form of regulated trade from <a href="https://theconversation.com/dehorning-rhinos-why-there-may-be-a-case-for-doing-it-64902">dehorning</a> sedated rhinos, natural mortality and horn seized from poachers. But it is contentious and conservationists are divided on the [issue]( (https://africajournalismtheworld.com/2016/09/11/rhino-horn-and-conservation-to-trade-or-not-to-trade-that-is-the-question/). </p>
<p>One must hope that the downward trend in poaching continues. All one can say is that there are improvements in Kruger National Park but the war is not won. For sure, there are more battles to be fought.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65358/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Somerville received funding from the Comanis Foundation for his research trip to South Africa and Swaziland. </span></em></p>Initiatives to curb rhino poaching in the Kruger National Park has shown improvement compared to last year. But poaching in other parks has increased.Keith Somerville, Visiting Professor, University of KentLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.