Rhino subspecies vanishing from the wild

In this Jan. 25, 2011 photo, a black rhi­noc­eros calf born at the zoo on Jan. 14 stays close to his mother, Kati Rain, at the Saint Louis Zoo in Saint Louis. The Inter­na­tional Union for the Con­ser­va­tion of Nature said Thurs­day, Nov. 10, 2011, that the West­ern Black Rhino of Africa, a species related to these black rhi­nos, is offi­cially extinct. (Cour­tesy | Saint Louis Zoo)

Asso­ci­ated Press

GENEVA — The West­ern Black Rhino of Africa has been declared offi­cially extinct, and two other sub­species of rhi­noc­eros are close to meet­ing the same fate, a lead­ing con­ser­va­tion group said Thursday.

The Inter­na­tional Union for Con­ser­va­tion of Nature said a recent reassess­ment of the West­ern Black Rhino had led it to declare the species extinct, adding that the North­ern White Rhino of cen­tral Africa is now “pos­si­bly extinct” in the wild and the Javan Rhino is “prob­a­bly extinct” in Viet­nam, after poach­ers killed the last ani­mal there in 2010.

A small but declin­ing pop­u­la­tion of the Javan Rhino sur­vives on the Indone­sian island of Java, it added.

“A lack of polit­i­cal sup­port and willpower for con­ser­va­tion efforts in many rhino habi­tats, inter­na­tional orga­nized crime groups tar­get­ing rhi­nos and increas­ing ille­gal demand for rhino horns and com­mer­cial poach­ing are the main threats faced by rhi­nos,” the group said in a state­ment accom­pa­ny­ing the lat­est update of its so-called Red List of endan­gered species.

About a quar­ter of all mam­mals are at risk of extinc­tion, IUCN said, adding that some species have been brought back from the brink with suc­cess­ful con­ser­va­tion programs.

The South­ern White Rhino num­bered just 100 ani­mals at the end of the 19th cen­tury, but has since flour­ished and now has a pop­u­la­tion of over 20,000.

The Przewalski’s Horse, a type of wild horse from Cen­tral Asia, has come back from extinc­tion after a suc­cess­ful breed­ing pro­gram in captivity.

The Red List now con­tains almost 62,000 species of plants and ani­mals, whose sta­tus is con­stantly mon­i­tored by conservationists.

Posted by AP News on Nov 10 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.