http://www.wwfcanada.org/facts/rhino.html
The five rhinoceros species existing today are descendants of the more than 30 rhino species that lived on earth over 60 million years ago. Today, the rhino is found only in Africa and Asia and all five species are now threatened with extinction. Demand for rhino horn as a traditional Oriental medicine and for use as intricately carved dagger handles in North Yemen has fuelled poaching in Africa and Asia. While there were an estimated 70,000 black rhinos in Africa alone in the late 1960s, there are now fewer than 11,000 wild rhinos left in the world.
Asian rhinos once ranged widely across southern and south-eastern Asia, but are now found only in small, isolated areas. The remaining 1,900 Indian rhinos are found in the protected open marshy reserves in northeastern India, Bhutan and Nepal. Of the three species of Asian rhino, the Indian rhino is the least threatened.
The Javan and Sumatran rhinos prefer thick rainforests. The Javan rhino still exists in Vietnam with a population of about 15-20 animals, while 45-50 remain in Java's Ujung Kulon National Park. The Javan rhino has the dubious distinction of being the rarest large mammal in the world. The remaining 400-500 Sumatran rhinos, the smallest of the five species of rhinos, are thinly scattered throughout Sumatra, Borneo, the Malay Peninsula, Burma and perhaps in some very remote areas of Thailand.
The decline of the Asian rhino is due mainly to excessive demand for rhino horn. Reduced and fragmented populations are especially vulnerable to extinction because of the small number of breeding adults. Habitat destruction by humans is another threat.
Two rhino species are found in Africa: the black rhino (Diceros bicornis) and the white rhino (Ceratotherium simum). The black rhino is found in south-western, south-central and eastern Africa and a few remain north of the rainforest belt in Cameroon. The black rhino is listed as endangered by the IUCN.
The white, or square-lipped, rhino is the largest surviving rhino, weighing up to 2,500 kilos. However, this rhino is actually grey, not white. Its name probably derives from a mistranslation of the Boer word wijde, meaning wide, which refers to the animal's broad, squarish lips. At the end of the last century, the southern white rhino was already believed extinct. A few were discovered in Natal, South Africa and, as a result of careful protection, there are now about 580. These southern white rhinos are listed as vulnerable. The position of the northern subspecies, however, is far more precarious. Only 31 rhinos remain, all found in Za‹re's Garamba National Park and they are listed as endangered. However, this is somewhat improved from ten years ago, when the population estimate was only 12-15 individuals.
Also grey in colour, the black rhino is considerably smaller than the white rhino, weighing about 1,400 kilos. There are less than 2,500 black rhinos left in Africa _ mainly in Namibia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Kenya and Tanzania.
Both African rhino species prefer the open savannahs and are generally not found in forest zones. The black rhino is generally solitary and hostile when disturbed, while the white rhino is more social and rather placid. Poaching continues to push this species towards extinction.
The demand for rhino horn as a medicinal ingredient in Asia is the root cause of the three Asian rhinos' near extinct status. China's last rhino was killed more than 1,000 years ago. Traditional Chinese medicine uses rhino horn to treat fevers and other ailments such as epilepsy, malaria, poisoning and abscesses. Until recently, westerners had been skeptical about its healing capacities, but studies done in Hong Kong proved that rhino horn can reduce fever, but not at the dosage rates prescribed.
However, demand for medicine has not been the only factor in the destruction of Africa's rhino populations. In Yemen, a carved rhino horn handle on a jambiyya, the traditional dagger worn by men, is a status symbol. In the 1970s, as oil revenue poured in, Yemeni buying power increased _ many more people than ever before could afford rhino horn. This led to an unprecedented wave of poaching: around 90 per cent of the black rhinos of Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia were killed, and the species has become extinct in up to seven countries.
Although Yemen's rhino horn imports are believed to have tapered off in the late 1980s, it appears that they may be increasing once again. Yemeni officials are being urged to adopt legislation that would ban internal sale of rhino horn, and to join the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, CITES. In addition, Yemen's religious leader, the Grand Mufti, has issued an edict stating that it is against the will of God to kill rhinos for their horns.
TRAFFIC -- Trade Records Analysis of Flora and Fauna in Commerce, WWF's wildlife trade monitoring arm is working to reduce the threats to rhinos posed by the illegal trade in rhino horn in Yemen and in countries where rhino horn is used in the preparation of traditional Asian medicines. Emphasis is being placed on stopping the illegal trade in China, South Korea and Taiwan, three of the largest remaining markets for rhino horn.
Under CITES, all five rhino species are listed in Appendix I, which prohibits commercial trade in rhino horn and its by-products. The rhino has been listed in Appendix I since 1977. All African and Asian countries with wild rhino populations have banned hunting for the rhino horn trade.
However, with rhino poaching continuing despite the CITES listing and numbers now dropping to critical levels, efforts to hold on to the remaining wild populations of this species are ongoing. One experimental effort to dehorn as many wild rhinos as possible has been undertaken in several southern African countries. Namibia was the first to undertake dehorning in the late 1980s when the black rhino population in Damaraland was dehorned. Swaziland has also started a dehorning program for white rhinos and in Zimbabwe, approximately 150 white and 150 black rhinos were dehorned in 1992.
Dehorning as a protection strategy is showing mixed results. While it can be a deterrent to poaching in many situations, poachers may still kill a rhino because they are unable to see from a distance that the rhino has been dehorned. In other cases, poachers will kill the rhino even if the horn has been removed in order to extract the horn stub that remains after dehorning. Other implications of dehorning include the possible negative effect it may have on the social and reproductive behavior of rhinos. Another negative implication is the high cost of dehorning. As rhino horn is made of keratin, which is also found in human fingernails and hair, it grows back when cut. Hence, dehorning operations need to be repeated every two to three years and costs are high -- about US$ 1,000 per animal.
IUCN and WWF are actively involved in conservation efforts to save the dwindling numbers of rhinos. These include assisting governments in their efforts to protect the species against poaching, protecting the rhino's remaining habitats, captive breeding, and pressuring countries to ban all trade in rhino horn.