Rhino Numbers Up but There are Still Too Few
5/10/98
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Title: Rhino Numbers Up but There are Still Too Few
Source: The Associated Press
Status: Copyrighted, contact source to reprint
Date: 5/10/98
LONDON (AP) -- The number of African rhinos has risen above 11,000 for the
first time in more than a decade, a new census says.
It is the second straight year the number of black and white African rhinos has
risen, according to a survey for the BBC's Wildlife Rhino Mayday campaign
released Saturday at an environmental conference in London.
But wildlife campaigners say the gains are small for an animal that numbered
more than 65,000 only 30 years ago.
"It's a pleasing recovery, but a fragile one," said Ian Redmond, chairman of
the U.K. Rhino Group, which organized the conference.
"Once rhinos roamed over most of east and southern Africa. Now they only
survive in the wild, behind high security fences, protected by armed guards --
a sad comment on our attitude to other species."
Rhinos in the wild have been poached and starved for years. Their horn has
traditionally been used to make dagger handles in the Middle East and as
medicine and an aphrodisiac in Asia.
African rhinos are listed as endangered by the Convention on Trade in
Endangered Species.
The survey found the largest growth in the rhino herd has been in South Africa,
where tourists are allowed to shoot rhinos on safari. The rhino population
there now totals around 8,900.
But the black rhino is believed to be extinct in Botswana and Zambia, and nine
countries have fewer than 30 left of either type, the survey said.
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