the causes of endangerment

Causes of Endangerment

Overexploitation

Unlike most large mammals, habitat loss has not been a significant factor in the decline of rhinos. Rather, poaching for their horn has decimated rhino populations.

As early as the 5th century B.C., rhino horn was believed capable of rendering some poisons harmless. In Borneo, people used to hang a rhino's tail in a room where a woman was giving birth, believing it would ease labor pains. Asians used rhino horn in traditional medicines for a thousand years without threatening the species' survival.

It was not until the 1970s that rhinos declined dramatically, due to a surprising cause: the soaring price of oil. Young men in the Arab country of Yemen covet rhino horn for elaborately-carved dagger handles, symbols of wealth and status in that country. Until the 1970s, few men could afford these prized dagger handles. But Yemen and other Middle Eastern countries are rich in oil, and prices for this "black gold" climbed dramatically in that decade due to a worldwide oil shortage.

The result was a seven-fold increase in the per capita income in Yemen, a rise in wealth that made rhino horn dagger handles within the reach of almost everyone. This small country, with a population of 6 million at the time, suddenly became the world's largest importer of rhino horn.

The value of rhino horn made it enormously profitable to poach rhinos and sell them on the black market. For example, in 1990, the two horns from a single black rhino brought as much as $50,000. Just like poaching for elephant ivory, poaching for rhino horn is simply too profitable for many subsistence farmers and herders to resist.( http://www.bagheera.com/inthewild/van_anim_rhino.htm )

About the black rhino

All info taken from http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/html/companions.html below is some key areas of information.

"The Black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis), is a living relic of a more pristine period in the earth's history, and must surely be one of Nature's most interesting and least understood animals.

It is instinct that dictates a lot of their actions, particularly matters important to survival, and instinct is particularly strong in the more ancient species such as rhinos. Theirs is a hidden and complex world of scent and chemistry, their social system is complex, their body language and vocalisations subtle and their very rigid territoriality often confusing.

The vector of the Rhino filarial worm is thought to be another fly known as Rhinomusca which resembles the common housefly and again is specific to rhinos, feeding on their blood. Rhinomusca flies are often found in and around the filarial lesions, but also easily draw blood through the skin itself. Despite the ancient English saying -"a hide like a rhino", the skin of a rhino is extremely sensitive. Touch a rhino with a feather, and it will immediately respond. Rhino skin has an ample blood supply very close to the surface and, in fact, when the animal is in poor health, the skin "bleeds", coating the animal. in a what looks like tar, but, in fact is dried blood.

Rhinos have myopic vision, but this is no handicap, but merely that they don't need their eyes in view of the sophistication of their other senses. For instance, they have phenomenal hearing. Our orphaned rhinos can detect the approach of another rhino half an hour before the animal actually becomes visible. A rhino's "Come Here" call to a loved one is no more than a soft exhalation of breath that is barely audible but which obviously carries far and is used mostly between mother and young. The rhino repertoire of louder sounds is equally as impressive -- long drawn out snorts that resemble a nose blow which signify alarm, a mewing noise like a kitten which is a "wanting" sound, and a loud terrifying roar more akin to the voice of a lion when angry and prepared for combat.

Chemistry plays probably the most significant role within a rhino's life. By kicking their dung with the hind feet, they demarcate boundaries and territory and leave their specific scent trail on the ground for others to know where they have gone. By contributing their dung to the communal dungpiles, they alert all others within the community to their presence and establish their right to "belong". By squirting their urine against shrubs and bushes they advertise their rank and status through hormones, in the case of the females, also indicating estrous cycles and in the case of-the males alerting others to dominance and rank which are important parameters for breeding. The memory of a rhino is also phenomenal. Having carefully and meticulously explored their surroundings only once, a new orphan can then take it at a gallop and never collide with any obstacle, moving swiftly and surely simply by memory and scent.

The role of rhinos within the environment is a very important one. The Black Rhino is essentially a browser, feeding mainly on shrubs, legumes and noxious weeds, many of which are poisonous to other animals. By cleanly clipping larger branches and twigs, they promote fresh soft shoots that sustain a large variety and number of other herbivores during the dry seasons. By ridding the pastures of toxic weeds, they inhibit their spread, thereby improving the grazing for others. They are a highly successful species in terms of Nature, moderate in their food requirements, modest in their need for space. Were it not for the insane demand for their horn in the Far and Middle East, and indeed, for all their body components, which are enmeshed in myth and superstition, rhinos today would be as numerous as they were when the world was new. Only man's insatiable greed has pushed these wonderful animals to the very brink of extinction, so that today they teeter on the very edge of annihilation."

some interesting first hand stories of orphaned rhinos http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/html/rhino_archival.asp

Project Brief

My goal is to create a Black rhino display that will highlight the plight of the rhino and the conservation efforts being made to keep this prehistoric animal from becoming extinct!