The latest update to the Red List -- the International Union for
Conservation of Nature (IUCN)'s log of extinct and threatened
species -- has declared that one subspecies of rhino has been poached into
extinction, while another is past the point of no return.
A subspecies of the western black rhino (Diceros bicornis
longipes) native to western Africa is now completely extinct, the
IUCN says. Another species, northern white rhinos from central
Africa, are "currently teetering on the brink of extinction and has
been listed as 'Possibly Extinct in the Wild'."
The Javan rhino (Rhinoceros sondaicus) isn't doing much better, as
its Vietnamese subspecies went extinct just last year. The last
animal of that group was killed by poaching in Vietnam in 2010.
There's just one population left on the tiny island of Java -- it's
believed that as few as 40 or 50 of the animals are still alive,
and a single disease or natural disaster could wipe them out.
The problem is that rhinoceroses are still being poached for
their horns. The fearsome spikes are used in traditional Asian
medicine and made into dagger handles in Yemen and Oman, and
despite fierce anti-poaching laws the horns still fetch high prices
on the black market. They can sell for as much as $30,000 per
Still, it's not all bad news. The southern white rhino
(Ceratotherium simum simum) is back from the brink of extinction.
At the end of the 1800s some 100 examples roamed the planet --
today, 20,000 or more exist.
Elsewhere in the animal kingdom there's a rather bleak outlook.
A quarter of all mammal species assessed are at risk of extinction and about a
third of the 61,900 species now catalogued by the IUCN are
classified as "vulnerable," "endangered," "critically endangered,"
or plain-old "extinct".
"Human beings are stewards of the earth and we are responsible
for protecting the species that share our environment," says Simon
Stuart, Chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission. "In the case
of both the Western Black Rhino and the Northern White Rhino the
situation could have had very different results if the suggested
conservation measures had been implemented."