Crisis in Manas: Mother rhino killed, leaving behind 2-week-old orphaned calf.

Two weeks ago, we proudly announced the birth of two new Indian rhinos in Manas National Park as part of Indian Rhino Vision 2020 program. Today, we share the sad news that the mother of one the new calves, Rhino 17, was gunned down last week, her horn removed by poachers. We are outraged at this loss – this is the third translocated rhino killed in the past six months. The two week-old male calf, who was missing for a day, survived the attack and was found dehydrated and traumatized near its mother’s body. The calf has since been transferred to a facility for hand-rearing.

Rhino 17 and her calf.

IRF and partners have decided the most responsible and safest course of action is to immediately capture the remaining 17 rhinos and place them into large ‘bomas’ (pens) with around-the-clock security until the poaching situation can be brought under control.

Within the next two weeks, we will construct at least seven bomas in the park. Once construction is finished, the remaining rhinos will be immobilized and moved to the bomas for safety. To prevent fighting, males will be housed separately, with females and calves in one large boma (as they do not tend to fight). Each animal’s radiocollar will be refitted with new transmitters and batteries; those animals without collars will receive them. This will allow us to track the animals once they are re-released.

We need your help to raise $35,000 in
emergency funds for this endeavor. It’s truly
a matter of life and death.

While these emergency actions are taking place, IRF and its partners, WWF-India, the Bodo Territorial Council and the USFWS, are putting pressure on high level government officials to implement agreed-upon security measures for Manas National Park, with staff accountability and a renewed effort by the park authorities to safeguard these precious animals.

Calf being transported to a hand-rearing facility.

Rhinos across Africa and India are being killed at unprecedented rates to feed the global black market for rhino horn, which has long been used in traditional Asian medicine as a fever reducer. In recent years, a new market has emerged in Vietnam, where it is marketed as a miracle cure for everything from cancer to hangovers, all without a medical or scientific basis. Vietnam has done little to enforce its laws or its commitments as a signatory to the Conference on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Some experts have proposed trade sanctions against Vietnam until it begins to effectively deal with its burgeoning wildlife crime.

Calf being bottle fed.

Stopping Vietnam’s War on Rhinos

Northern white rhino

Unfortunately, the rhino poaching crisis is nothing new. Throughout history these large land mammals have been subject to periods of unconscionable slaughter at the hand of man.  Of the five living species, four – the white, Indian, Sumatran and Javan – have, at one time or another, been reduced to populations of only a few hundred individuals or less. Perhaps more than any other species on the planet, rhinos define what it means to teeter on “the brink of extinction”.

The rhino’s problem isn’t an albatross around its neck, it’s the horn at the tip of its snout.  For centuries, millions of people in Asia have regarded rhino horn as medicine, and a growing number now consider it a status symbol as well. A Vietnamese citizen will shell out a relatively small fortune for an ounce of powdered rhino horn, but his or her ability to pay the purchase price has little to do with its effectiveness. It’s doubtful that the buyer has any clue to the “price” the rhino had to pay, and that situation must change.

The 16th Conference of Parties (COP 16) in Bangkok, Thailand was recently attended by representatives of 179 CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) signatory countries. Discussions at COP 16 focused on the enforcement of existing wildlife laws and the imposition of international trade sanctions on countries like Vietnam if they do not clean up their acts. In order to curtail the illegal trade in horn, the parties agreed that specialized investigative techniques are necessary and that the problem of money-laundering must be addressed. They also called for consumer research that will help better understand the factors that are driving demand.

TRAFFIC WWF/IUCN Report: The South Africa-Vietnam Rhino Horn Trade Nexus

There are no more wild rhinos in Vietnam

A number of organizations are already working hard to document and analyze the trade that originates largely in the Republic of South Africa – a country that holds almost three-quarters of the world rhino population – and now ends primarily in Vietnam – a country has a rising standard of living but lost its last rhino only a couple of years ago. The International Rhino Foundation will help TRAFFIC: The Wildlife Trade Monitoring Network, translate a comprehensive report, The South Africa – Vietnam Rhino Horn Trade Nexus, and distribute it in Vietnam. Two other non-governmental organizations, Education for Nature Vietnam (ENV) and South Africa’s Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) , are partnering on an anti-rhino poaching campaign that is both multi-media and bi-lingual. Posters encourage consumers to stop the slaughter by not using rhino horn, and to consider the baby rhinos that are orphaned by poaching. An ENV public service announcement supported by Save the Rhino – International and Conservation International’s Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund confronts rhino horn consumers as “ignorant, foolish, backward, cruel and evil”, and hammers home the message that rhino horn is neither status symbol nor medicine.

ENV & EWT anti-rhino poaching poster #1

ENV & EWT anti-rhino poaching poster #2

In 2012, more than 700 white and black rhinos were killed by poachers in southern Africa, 668 of them in the Republic of South Africa alone – a rate perilously close to two rhinos per day – and the slaughter shows need immediate signs of decreasing. Fortunately, up to this point, births have kept pace with deaths, but that situation is destined to change if nothing is done, and experts predict that African rhino populations will begin to spiral downward in only a couple of years.

If you would like to help support efforts to save southern Africa’s threatened rhinos, go to: http://www.rhinos.org/operation-stop-poaching-now.

The Curse of the Unicorn

The Unicorn in Captivity (from the Unicorn Tapestries) – Metropolitan Museum of Art

In his book, The Future of Life, biologist Edward O. Wilson had this to say about the first time he laid eyes upon the rare Sumatran rhinoceros in the flesh: “One of the most memorable events of my life occurred on a late May evening in 1994, in a back room of the Cincinnati Zoo, when I walked up to a four-year-old Sumatran rhinoceros named Emi, gazed into her lugubrious face for a while, and placed the flat of my hand against her hairy flank.  She made no response except maybe to blink her eyes. That’s it; that’s all that happened.  No matter: I had at last met my real-life unicorn.”

The unicorn is an imaginary creature that symbolizes purity.  It was first described by Ancient Greek naturalists as a species that inhabited the distant land of India.  Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD) spoke of the monoceros, “a very fierce animal … which has the head of the stag, the feet of the elephant, and the tail of the boar, while the rest of the body is like that of the horse; it makes a deep lowing noise, and has a single black horn, which projects from the middle of its forehead, two cubits in length.”  Perhaps the Indian rhinoceros comes to mind?

Greater One-horned or Indian Rhinoceros, Kaziranga National Park

The unicorn legend became popular throughout Europe during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.  The creature was said to roam the woodlands and could only be captured by a virgin.  Many people believed that its horn, which was called an alicorn, was an antidote to poison and could be used to treat illness. Alicorns could be purchased from Scandinavian traders, but the price was extravagant – per weight, supposedly many times more than that of gold.  The average alicorn was grooved and about three feet long.  Unfortunately, it never came from a unicorn.  A Dutch physician and naturalist, Ole Wurm, told the world the truth, the alicorn was really the long tusk of the small arctic whale known as the narwhal.  Narwhals are still hunted today for their tusks by certain indigenous populations, but many experts believe that this is not sustainable over the long-term.

White rhinoceros – South Africa

That the rhinoceros might be likened to the legendary unicorn is not so far-fetched, certainly no stranger than ancient sailors believing that hefty, whiskered sea mammals like dugongs and manatees were really mermaids.  Rhinos are distant relatives of horses and the horns of some rhino species can grow quite long.  So, with a dash of imagination and perhaps a pinch of intoxication, a person viewing a rhino could conjure the image of a unicorn in his mind, although that transformation would seem to be a bit easier with several of the antelope species, such as the oryx, that sport spectacular horns, albeit in pairs and from the top of the skull instead of the nose.

Arabian oryx – United Arab Emirates

Like the unicorn’s unusual appendage, the rhino’s horn also was once believed to detect and neutralize poison, and it is still believed by many Asian people to have medicinal properties.  As a result, white and black rhinos in southern Africa are now being killed by poachers at the rate of almost two per day.  If such slaughter continues, decades of dedicated efforts to bring these species back from the brink of extinction will have been for naught.

Unicorns never existed, but rhinos can and must survive as living legends.

If you’d like to know more about what the International Rhino Foundation is doing to combat poaching in southern Africa, go to: http://www.rhinos.org/operation-stop-poaching-now.

“R” is for Rhinos: Home Range

“R” is for Rhino … and also for Home Range.

Whether a rhino lives on the African Serengeti, in the foothills of the Himalayas, or in the dense tropical forests of Java and Sumatra, it inhabits what wildlife ecologists refer to as a home range.  This is the area in which it must find all the food, water, and shelter necessary to survive, as well as locate members of the opposite sex in order to reproduce.  Sometimes the home range of one individual will overlap with those of others.  In other cases, one rhino will defend part or all of its home range from intrusion by other species or members of its own kind.  Biologists refer to this defended area as a territory.

The size of a rhino’s home range varies from species to species, from one habitat type to another, from one season to the next, and even between the two sexes.  Field research results also can be mixed depending upon the study methods used and the way in which the home ranges are actually mapped.  However, it appears that the rhino species with the most compact home range may be the greater one-horned or Indian rhino, which prefers wetland habitats in river valleys.  Studies conducted in Nepal’s Royal Chitwan National Park indicate that the average annual home range of a female is slightly less than four square kilometers (about 1,000 acres) and that of a male slightly more.  Studies also show that Indian rhino ranges expand during periods of drought, when animals have to travel further to find food, and shrink during the monsoon season, when increased rains produce lusher, denser vegetation.

Larger home ranges are more common among the two savanna-dwelling African species – the black rhino and the white rhino – and the two tropical forest-dwelling Asian species – the Sumatran rhino and Javan rhino.  Home ranges of female Sumatran and Javan rhinos usually don’t overlap and may cover between eight to 15 square kilometers.  Male home ranges of these same two species tend to be significantly larger, perhaps 15 to 50 square kilometers, and are much more likely to overlap.  Some of the largest home ranges measured are those of black rhinos inhabiting the vast Serengeti.  In fact, it’s not unusual for an individual to roam an area of more than 100 square kilometers. The abundance of waterholes, wallows and salt-licks factors into home range size as much as food availability.

Rhinos typically mark their territories with urine and dung, as well as by scraping the soil with their hooves and rubbing trees with their horns.  Some concentrate their dung in piles called middens, which serve as natural “street signs,” while others kick it into the air to better disseminate their unique scent and advertise their presence.  Given a rhino’s notoriously poor eyesight, the use of olfactory cues helps avoid aggressive encounters.

The Rhinos are Back … After More Than a Decade!

By Boston Kaloko

The Way Kanan river area of Way Kambas National Park provides good habitat for Sumatran rhinos.  It was about 11 years ago, when one of the Rhino Protection Units (RPUs) first took a photo of a Sumatran rhino wallowing in the Way Kanan. That was when we were still using pocket cameras with negative film, so the picture was not very good. A few years earlier, in 1999, we found foot prints of a baby rhino and its mother at the same location, so we were pleased that the rhino population was doing well.

However, in 2000 many local people began moving into the area.  They began planting cassava, hunting, trapping and fishing, and the rhinos started moving away.  Slowly, year by year, human encroachment grew and we didn’t find any more signs of Sumatran rhinos, not even a foot print or a scratch on a tree.  According to our database, signs of rhinos diappeared from the Way Kanan area and the animals moved away to the central part of the national park.

It wasn’t until 2010 that we were able to take action. The RPUs worked with the national park staff, the police department and the army to remove all encroachment from the park. The operation took one full month, but we cleared 3,500 hectares of all illegal activities.  This is a difficult thing to accomplish in Indonesia, so we were very proud of our success.

Since the successful removal of illegal campsand activities,the RPUs and national park staff have carefully monitored the area. In January 2012, about a year-and-a-half later, we found permanent wallows, feeding signs and scratches on trees – all signs that the rhinos were returning. We were surprised and very, very happy. After being gone from Way Kanan for 11 years, the rhinos were back.  And we continue to find their signs when we patrol that area.  In our opinion, the rhinos are paying us back for protecting them.

Translated and edited by Inov

Say “No” to Rhino Horns!

Yao Ming meets white rhino and director Rick Barongi at the Houston Zoo

Say “No” to Rhino Horns!

That’s the message that retired Chinese basketball superstar Yao Ming has for his fans back home, many of whom believe that rhino horn has powerful tonic or curative properties. Unfortunately, these traditional, but mistaken, beliefs have fueled an increasing international trade in rhino horn that ultimately threatens the survival of the world’s five remaining rhino species. Yao visited Kenya last year to observe the desperate situation firsthand. He is working closely with the organizations Wild Aid and the African Wildlife Foundation to stop rhino and elephant poaching by creating public awareness of the slaughter involved in bringing illegal horn and ivory to market. Billboards at airports across China and graphic online videos tell the gruesome story and present stark statistics to would-be consumers. The campaign slogan – When the Buying Stops, the Killing Can Too!

In Houston to attend the 2013 NBA All-Star Game, Yao stopped in for a visit to the Houston Zoo, where he met one of the resident white rhinos and zoo director Rick Barongi. Rick is also a board member of the International Rhino Foundation and serves as vice president for African programs.

“R” is for Rhinos: Reserves

“R” is for Rhinos … and also for Reserves

The idea of raising rhinos on private reserves is certainly not new and has, in fact, contributed significantly to the remarkable recovery of the southern white rhinoceros during the 20th century. Having been reduced to a remnant population of fewer than one hundred animals in the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Game Reserve in the 1890s, white rhinos numbers have swelled to more than 20,000 animals spread across nine countries—South Africa, Namibia, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia, and Mozambique.  The overwhelming bulk—more than 90%—of the these populations are found in the Republic of South Africa, where approximately one-quarter of the country’s white rhinos are maintained on private lands. Private landowners in South Africa hold about 20% of the nation’s black rhinos as well.

Rhinos raised on private reserves have been used to repopulate protected areas, to bolster nature tourism, and for trophy hunting programs that help generate support for wildlife conservation. In China, rhinos are reportedly being ranched to produce horn for medicinal purposes. Currently, a controversy is brewing as to whether the international trade in rhino horn should be legalized, which some private holders favor as a way of managing what they consider to be a renewable resource, meeting the demand that currently exists in countries like China and Vietnam, and ultimately reducing rhino poaching by bringing down the price of illegally obtained and trafficked horn. Opponents to legalization favor increased protection and de-horning as anti-poaching counter measures.  This issue is hotly debated and under review by parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Most of the major NGOs, including IRF, do not support legalizing trade in rhino horn.

International policies and politics aside, among the five rhino species, the white rhino is the best candidate for breeding under managed conditions. White rhinos are generally more tractable than black rhinos, as well as more easily maintained as herds at higher densities than their somewhat smaller and more irritable cousins. Private holding of rhinos is largely an African phenomenon. Asian rhinos are found only in national parks such as the Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary and Kaziranga National Park in India, and Way Kambas and Bukit Barisan Selatan National Parks in Indonesia.

Managing rhino populations in special captive breeding programs is a major undertaking.  Large areas of suitable habitat – at least 10,000 to 15,000 acres – must be secured.  Compatibility with other farming or agricultural activities must be considered, as well as interactions with other wildlife. For example, adult rhinos may engage in aggressive encounters with elephants or hippos, and calves may fall victim to predators such as lions, hyenas or crocodiles. Protection from poachers is critical, especially given the recent spike in the illegal rhino horn trade, and ranchers must make serious investments in this aspect of their operations. Some have taken to dehorning their rhinos to deter poachers, while a few have even injected their animals’ horns with chemicals that render them toxic to consumers.

Rhino breeding for conservation is not limited to range countries. In the United States, for example, both white and black rhinos are maintained at a number of special facilities as insurance populations, and perhaps as eventual stock for reintroduction programs.

“R” is for Rhinos: Widodo Ramono

“R” is for Rhinos, and also for …. Widodo Ramono.

Few people have dedicated more years to the study and conservation of Asian rhinos than Indonesian biologist Widodo Ramono. Born on April 4, 1945 in the Central Javan city of Blora, Widodo today serves as the executive director of Yayasan Badak Indonesia (YABI), the Rhino Foundation of Indonesia. Located in Bogor, YABI is the International Rhino Foundation’s principal partner in programs that are helping to ensure the survival of both Sumatran and Javan rhinos.

Widodo is married with three grown children. He looks remarkable young for someone approaching seventy years of age and credits his general well being to a healthy diet and working outdoors. When not at YABI’s headquarters in Bogor, Widodo spends most of his time at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary or inspecting the work of Rhino Protection Units (RPUs) at Bukit Barisan Selatan, Way Kambas and Ujung Kulon National Parks. He also receives invitations from government authorities and international organizations to speak about rhino conservation efforts in Indonesia, where the final strongholds for the two rarest and most critically endangered species are found.

Following his elementary and secondary school education in Blora, Widodo studied nature conservation at the Senior High School of Forestry in Bogor and later traveled internationally to receive technical training in forestry operations, national park administration, wildlife management, environmental impact assessment, conservation biology and public sector leadership. Since 1969, he has held a variety of civil servant positions in wildlife conservation, notable among them being the head of Nature Protection and Conservation of Ujung Kulon National Park, which now holds the world’s last known population of Javan rhinos – perhaps 40 to 50 individuals. Widodo’s lengthy career has also included the management of Asian elephant populations in southern Sumatra, and development of three Indonesian national parks (Bukit Barisan Selatan, Kerinci Seblat and Way Kambas). After completing his study on State Administration in Lampung, he was appointed forestry operations management chief in Aceh Province. And, as the former Director of Biodiversity Conservation for the Ministry of Forestry, he played a major role in establishing management practices for his country’s national parks, nature and game reserves, recreation forests, and wetlands.Widodo worked for The Nature Conservancy – Indonesia Programs after completing his work with for the Government of Indonesia.

Last June, no one was more gratified than Widodo at the birth of Andatu, the first Sumatran rhino ever born in captivity in Indonesia. The birth took place at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary, which Widodo supervises with support from the International Rhino Foundation. However, his celebration regarding this historic birth is tempered by the continued threats that face Indonesia’s remaining rhinos, which means that Widodo Ramono’s job is not yet done.

“R” is for Rhinos: Radio-telemetry

“R” is for Rhinos, and also for …. Radio-telemetry.

The technology known as radio-telemetry enhances our ability to track and monitor rhinos.  The principles of radio-telemetry are essentially the same as listening to a radio news broadcast.  A small portable transmitter – think of it as a miniature radio station – emits radio waves that travel invisibly through the air, are picked up by an antenna and channeled to a receiver.  However, instead of commentary, music or advertisement, the transmitter emits a series of beeps – or is it bleeps?  Either way, the sound emitted by each transmitter can be set to a different frequency, allowing the listener to tune in to a specific one and determine from which direction the sound has originated.

Wildlife biologists routinely use radio-telemetry equipment to pinpoint the location of animals that are otherwise difficult to find and track.  More often than not, the transmitters are attached to collars that are specially designed not to restrict, hinder or harm but, depending on the target species, sometimes the transmitters can be attached to or imbedded in the animal’s body itself, such as in the dorsal fin of whale or the horn of a rhino.  As they say, “This isn’t rocket science,” but developing technologies should allow field researchers to gather more important information about the animals they study.

Two IRF projects employ radio-telemetry as standard practice – monitoring programs for translocated black rhinos in Zimbabwe’s Lowveld conservancies and for reintroduced greater one-horned rhinos in Manas National Park as part of the Indian Rhino Vision 2020 initiative. In Zimbabwe, more use is made of transmitters that can be placed inside a small cavity drilled that’s drilled into the rhino’s horn after it has been immobilized. Black rhinos have two relatively large horns, so the size ratio of horn to transmitter favors this strategy.  By comparison, the word “greater” in greater one-horned rhino refers not to the size of the horn, but to the bulk of the beast, and its relatively smaller horn is a less favorable site for a radio transmitter. Consequently, reintroduced rhinos in Assam, India are fitted with special, flexible radio-collars. The science is the same, but there are practical differences to consider.  At the end of the battery’s life on a radio-collared rhino, the animal has to be immobilized a second time to remove the collar, which poses some risk to the rhino. A horn implant, by comparison, simply “grows out’’ of the horn after about three years.

By radio-tracking rhinos that are also individually identifiable by sex, size, scars, ear-notches and ear-tags, wildlife biologists are able to continuously monitor their movements across large areas. For example, black rhinos released in Zimbabwe’s Bubye and Save Valley Conservancies can conceivably roam over more than a million acres.  On the other hand, greater one-horned rhinos in Manas National Park may tend to concentrate their activity close to the park perimeter and perhaps cross over into unprotected territory. In either case, rhino rangers and park guards must monitor their whereabouts to protect them from the threat of poachers.

A new approach to rhino radio-telemetry is currently being tested in southern Africa – attaching transmitters to ankle bracelets. Although these transmitters are relatively large, they add the capacity to relay positions via satellite links. Some wildlife biologists remain wary of their use, due to the risk of lesions to the rhinos’ legs or because the units can be damaged if the rhinos bash them against rocks or trees. Another new approach is RFID (Radio-Frequency IDentification) transponder technology, which allows smaller devices to be used. This is currently being tested in an International Rhino Foundation project in Zimbabwe, as well as in Namibia.

By experimenting with new ways to track and monitor these impressive creatures, rhino conservationists will gain a better understanding of their ecology and behavior, and hopefully will become more adept at protecting and rebuilding rhino populations.

For more information about Indian Rhino 2020 and the translocation of Greater one-horned rhinos in Assam, please watch the video below.

“R” is for Rhinos: Radiate

Bill Konstant, Program Officer

The word “rhinoceros” begins with the letter “R”, as do many other terms, places and names that relate to rhino ecology, behavior, history and conservation. In the weeks ahead, we’ll examine a number of “R” words that will give us a better understanding of these amazing creatures.

Radiate

Just like other mammals and birds, rhinos are endotherms. Their bodies are like internal combustion engines, producing heat as they consume and digest food. This metabolic heat warms their innards, and then they radiate any excess heat to the surrounding environment in order to maintain a stable internal temperature.  The process is called thermoregulation. The average rhino’s body temperature is about 100o F, not much different from our own. You may have heard endotherms referred to as “warm-blooded” animals – they’re able to keep their bodies warm even in freezing weather.

Other creatures, such as insects, fish, frogs, turtles and snakes are ectotherms.  They rely largely on external sources of heat – mainly the sun – to maintain internal body temperature. As a result, the temperature of their skin, bones, muscles and other organs is usually not very different from the air or water that surrounds them. Although ectotherms are commonly referred to as “cold-blooded”, their body temperature actually can rise to very high levels – think about a lizard sitting on a hot desert rock in the middle of the day – so they are very much at the mercy of their environment and sometimes need to take extraordinary measures to stay warm or keep their cool.

A crocodile submerged in the river is as cold as the water in which it swims, while one basking on the riverbank is warmed by the sun. If the sun’s rays are too strong, the crocodile will open its mouth and allow the moisture inside to evaporate. Heat thus radiates from the crocodile’s open mouth and helps cool the reptile’s insides.

Rhinos also risk overheating under the hot tropical sun, and they lack sweat glands that would help them cool off.  So, whether they live out on the plains, in marshes or in dense jungles, they routinely seek out water to help rid themselves of excess heat  When they bathe in mud, we call this wallowing. By coating its body in cool wet mud, the rhino provides the path for internal heat to radiate from its body and evaporate into thin air.  Wallowing also helps the rhino protect its skin from insect pests like mosquitoes and flies, as well as from sunburn.

Endotherms like rhinos employ a variety of cooling mechanisms. Hippos remain submerged during daylight hours. Dogs, foxes, coyotes and wolves pant, shedding heat through their open mouths much the same as crocodiles.  And elephants fan their huge, thin ears to dissipate heat.