Poachers drive Javan Rhino to extinction in Vietnam

By John R. Platt
25 October 2011
Sad news coming out of Vietnam today: the Javan rhinoceros subspecies (Rhinoceros sondaicus annamiticus), once endemic to Southeast Asia, has been confirmed as extinct, according to WWF International. There are now officially no rhinos left in Vietnam. This is the second of the three Javan rhino subspecies to be hunted into extinction. The first, the Indian Javan rhinoceros (R. sondaicus inermis), disappeared more than a century ago. Now only the Indonesian Javan rhino (R. sondaicus sondaicus) remains alive, and it might not last much longer either. Just 50 or fewer of these animals are thought to exist in Ujung Kulon National Park on the island of Java. All rhino species worldwide are heavily threatened by rampant poaching for their horns, which are sold for upward of $30,000 each for use in so-called traditional Asian medicine, even though they are of no actual medicinal value. There are two other Asian rhino species: the one-horned Indian rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis), which numbers about 3,000 animals in the wild, and the critically endangered Sumatran rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis), which has two subspecies with a combined population of less than 300 individuals. A third Sumatran rhino subspecies may or may not still exist. In addition, there are two African rhino species: the white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum)—which includes the southern white rhino (the healthiest rhino subspecies, with more than 17,000 animals) and the northern white rhino, which is now down to its last seven individuals—and the black rhino (Diceros bicornis), with three critically endangered subspecies (two of which are below 1,000 individuals) and a fourth subspecies that was last seen in the year 2000 and is now believed to be extinct. What is now known to have been the last Vietnam Javan rhino (the subspecies’s official name) was killed by poachers in April 2010. At the time, scientists estimated that there might have been up to eight of these elusive, rarely photographed rhinos left in Vietnam. Now it seems that already low estimate was too optimistic. Genetic analysis of 22 dung samples collected by a WWF survey team in 2009 and 2010 reveals that they were all from a single rhino—the same one shot by poachers last year. “The last Javan rhino in Vietnam has gone,” Tran Thi Minh Hien, WWF-Vietnam country director, said in a prepared statement. “It is painful that despite significant investment in the Vietnamese rhino population conservation efforts failed to save this unique animal. Vietnam has lost part of its natural heritage.” […]