Black Rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis) Fact Sheet: Population & Conservation Status

Total population size

• Approximately 3,140 mature individuals (Emslie 2020a)
• Most wild black rhinos are conserved in 4 states
  • South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Kenya conserve 96% of remaining wild population

Populations by subspecies

• D. b. bicornis (southwestern black rhino)
  • About 1,330 mature individuals (Emslie 2020b)
• D. b. michaeli (eastern black rhino)
  • About 580 mature individuals (Emslie 2020c)
• D. b. minor (southeastern black rhino)
  • About 1,230 individuals (Emslie 2020d)
• D. b. longipes (western black rhino)
  • No individuals remaining by 2006 (Emslie 2020e)

Historical population size

• Most most numerous of all rhino species through much of 20th century
  • Hunting, land clearance, and poaching reduced to a few thousand
• History of decline
  • 1800s-1900s: as many as 850,000; fairly continuous throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa
  • 1970: 65,000 in small, scattered, isolated populations
  • 1990: 3,800
  • 1995: 2,410 (low point) - 98% decline since 1960 due to large-scale poaching
  • 1999: 2, 700 - slight increase
  • 2001: 3,100 - slight increase
  • 2010: 4,880 (latest estimate) - steady increase over past 15 years

IUCN Status

• Red List
  • Diceros bicornis: Critically Endangered (2020 assessment) (Emslie 2020a)
  • ​Some subspecies also assessed:​​​
    • Diceros bicornis ssp. bicornis; Near Threatened (2020 assessment) (Emslie 2020b)
    • Diceros bicornis ssp. michaeli; Critically Endangered  (2020 assessment) (Emslie 2020c)​​
    • Diceros bicornis ssp. minor; Critically Endangered  (2020 assessment) (Emslie 2020d)​​
    • Diceros bicornis ssp. longipes; Extinct (2020 assessment) (Emslie 2020e)
• Green List
  • Largely Depleted (2024 assessment) (Ferreira et al. 2024)
    • Conservation efforts have halted population declines (Ferreira et al. 2024)
    • Reintroduced to large parts of its historic southern range (Ferreira et al. 2024)
    • Further recovery expected in 3 of 4 African regions where this species occurs (see Ferreira et al. 2024)

CITES

• Appendix I (UNEP 2018)

Conservation efforts

• Populations in protected areas
  • Most rhinos now live in protected, managed game reserves
• Needed efforts
  • Targeted research to examine seasonal diet
    • Imperative to understand the seasonal shift in diet when setting up protective reserves
  • Combat poaching
    • Many poached after wandering off a reserve looking for food during a drought
    • Assess the value of dehorning managed populations
      • The threat of poaching is still so prevalent, that some conservationists condone the practice, thus eliminating the temptation to poachers
  • Sustainable use (ecotourism, trophy hunting, horn harvesting, and trade in rhino products)
    • Management through sustainable use is controversial

Isolation of small populations

• Unmanaged populations
• Tend to be small and isolated
• More vulnerable to disease, inbreeding, and local extinction

Poaching

• Highly vulnerability to poachers
• Poor eyesight enables poachers to easily target rhinos, as long as they are down wind
• Prior to human encroachment, rhinos did not suffer from predation pressure and therefore, did not evolve behavior or sensory capability to avoid predators
• In Recent times, rhinos have learned some avoidance tactics
• Sedentary nature, and regular activity patterns also make it easier for poachers to find them
• E.g. rhinos revisit resting and watering spots
• Reasons for poaching
• Valued for their horns
  • Medicinal uses (most common)
  • Purported to help fevers, headaches, toxins, typhoid, jaundice, rashes, vomiting or excreting blood, to keep evil away, etc.
  • An aphrodisiac: contrary to popular thought, rarely used this way;  mostly by the Gujaratis in India
  • Horns are essentially the same chemical structure as hair; composed of keratin
  • Carved cups and dagger handles
  • Asian ("fire") horns thought by some to be more potent than African ("water") horns resulting in more hunting pressure for Asian species.
• Blood and skin
• Purported to have medicinal effects
• Poaching market, major consumers
• All rhino products: mostly China and Taiwan, but also Burma, Thailand, and Nepal
• Horns, medicinal uses: Japan and Korea
• Horns, dagger handles: Yemen (carved dagger handle is status symbol)
• Also a strong market in countries with immigrants from these places (e.g., the Chinese living in the US)
• Problems enforcing conservation laws
• Civil war and political instability
• Poverty due to exponential population growth, hyperinflation, and corruption
• Well armed poaching gangs
• Competition for land (leading to habitat destruction) by increasing populace
• Other comments on poaching
• It is likely that any improvement in health is due to the placebo effect (because of strong traditional beliefs), rather than to any real curative properties. Few scientific studies have been done, and have conflicting results (see Leader-Williams 1992)
• Earliest evidence of horn use for medical reasons: 2600 BC, China
• It is still legal to sell rhino products in many countries, and in others, enforcement is often lax

Ashley et al. (1990)
Emslie (2002)
Emslie (2012)
Emslie & Brooks (1999)
Leader-Williams (1992)
Schenkel & Schenkel-Hulliger (1969)