Private ranches in South Africa, meanwhile, lost just 0.5% of their rhinos to poaching in 2020. Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park has suffered similar declines. Kruger lost 6% of its population to poaching in 2020 alone. Today the park has just over 2,000 of the remaining 16,000 white rhinos. A decade ago, the 2-million-hectare Kruger National Park held over half of the world’s 20,000 white rhinos. ![]() Poaching is largely to blame for shrinking populations. 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 key state parks. Although outside their natural range, in east Africa 72% of Kenya’s white rhino populations are conserved by private landowners. More than 75% of Zimbabwe’s and Namibia’s white rhinos are on private lands. ![]() This trend is not unique to South Africa. Communities conserve a further 1% of the white rhinos. Poaching pressure was low at the time, and the demand for rhinos by eco-tourists and trophy hunters gave private landowners incentives to grow their rhino populations.īased on publicly available data, our recent paper shows that today, private landholders conserve over half of South Africa’s white rhinos. In 1991 the Game Theft Act formalised conditions for private rhino ownership and use. 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. Their population grew from fewer than 100 individuals in the 1920s to 20,000 in 2012, mostly in South Africa. Southern white rhinos are widely known as a conservation success story.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |