Where are rhinos safest?

Abstract

During 2020, South Africa reported 394 poached rhinoceros (rhino) carcasses – 34 at private properties and 360 at state properties.1 Poaching since 2008 has degraded South Africa’s rhino populations. By the start of 2020, South Africa had 14 410 southern white rhinos (Ceratotherium simum simum) and 1900 black rhinos, mostly south-central (Diceros bicornis bicornis) and south-western black rhino (D. b. minor) sub-species and a few nonnative eastern black rhinos (D. b. michaeli) (Table 1). Rhinos occur in national parks managed by SANParks, reserves managed by provincial conservation authorities and non-state areas comprising private and communal ownership. Of these, the Kruger National Park (Kruger) has experienced the highest number of poaching losses reported for state land. Kruger has an operational area the size of Israel (approximately 2 000 000 ha). In contrast, privately owned nature reserves containing rhinos in South Africa have a national average of 10 000 ha (1 300 000 ha distributed across 132 properties studied2). Therefore, privately owned reserves are, on average, approximately 200 times smaller than the size of Kruger. National parks other than Kruger, provincial and communal reserves are also smaller relative to Kruger, with the other national parks averaging approximately 33 000 ha, excluding Addo Elephant National Park (Addo), which is 173 000 ha. Addo, however, has five disconnected sections, three of which have rhinos present.