The Last of the White Rhinos
By Abigail Pietrow, Biology, 2018
On the 17th of October, in a wildlife conservancy in Kenya, a 34-year-old Northern White Rhinoceros died. The male rhinoceros, Suni, was one of only seven of his subspecies left alive in the world, and one of only two males.
Throughout the 20th century the wild population of this species has fluctuated; reduced from 500 individuals to 15 by poaching in the 1970’s, it rose to approximately 30 animals in the early 2000’s before dropping to the few surviving members we see today. Suni’s death could be the final nail in the coffin for this African giant.
Meanwhile, as this subspecies stands on the brink of extinction, over a thousand individuals of its close relative, the Southern White Rhino, were killed in poaching crimes during 2013.
The Southern White Rhino, while not nearly as scarce as its northern relative, is nearing “threatened” status. The total 2013 deaths of this species constitutes the highest number of deaths due to poaching since records began being kept in the early 1900s.
Poached animals are often left almost completely intact, missing only the one part that black markets in some parts of Asia can sell for a profit: their horns. Rhinoceros horns are thought, in these cultures, to have medicinal value as a cure-all for anything from the common cold to life-threatening diseases like cancer.
With hundreds of rhino horns smuggled out of Africa, and this trade thriving, it is time to assess the effectiveness of anti-poaching strategies.
The solution to this issue may lie in an altogether different approach, such as educating the public about the way these items are collected and bolstering widespread awareness of the danger that poaching poses to rhinoceros populations instead of attempting to stop the poachers themselves. If the demand for such items fades, then there is no market for poachers to sell their trophies.
This theory has had success in the past in Japan, where elephant ivory was a valuable commodity and a highly valued status symbol among those who could afford it. The popularity of ivory has dropped significantly in response to widespread efforts to spread awareness of elephant poaching. A similar strategy could be employed to save the rhinos.
However, even conservation success stories come with consequences. One such example can be found in the case of the northern elephant seals of California. Hunted almost to extinction by sealers in the 1800’s, the only surviving members of this species were in a group constituted of 20–100 seals living on a small island off the coast of Baja.
With the help of strict protection plans, today this species numbers around 170,000, however, all members of which are closely related, leaving the population with almost no genetic diversity.
It remains to be seen whether or not the Northern White Rhino could make such a comeback. Yet if the species managed it, the population would certainly encounter the same lack of genetic variation that has been observed in the northern elephant seals, leaving them drastically vulnerable to widespread infections and diseases.