Comeback critter: Southern white rhinoceros

A southern white rhinoceros calf playfully taps its snout against its sleepy mother in South Africa’s Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park. The mother and her baby are a special sight. Just over a hundred years ago, scientists thought these rhinos had gone extinct.

No more rhinos?

Southern white rhinos once grazed in the tall grasslands of southern Africa, but beginning in the 1800s, European settlers hunted the rhinos for sport. "These rhinos aren’t particularly aggressive, and they gather out in the open in groups," says Susie Ellis, director of the International Rhino Foundation. "Unfortunately, this makes them easy targets for hunters." By the late 1800s, experts believed that these rhinos had been hunted to extinction. 

Rhino rebound

But around 1895, scientists found something incredible: a group of about 50 southern white rhinos living together in South Africa. To make sure these vulnerable rhinos thrived, the South African government worked with conservationists to create the first two wilderness reserves in Africa, called Hluhluwe and Umfolozi, and hired rangers to protect the animals. And the conservationists didn’t keep the rhinos a secret, inviting visitors to the parks to show why people should care about protecting rhinos.

Over the next half century, the southern white rhino population grew, and soon park managers had  a good problem—the white rhinos were overflowing the boundaries of the reserves. Officials started moving  the rhinos, hoping that by spreading out the population, they could protect the species from going extinct if something happened to the rhinos in Hluhluwe and Umfolozi (which have since been combined into one park called Hluhluwe-iMfolozi). Beginning in the 1960s, conservationists transported about 1,100 rhinos to other parks in Africa and zoos around the world. 

Looking to the future

Today more than 18,000 southern white rhinos survive in the wild, all of them descended from the group discovered more than 120 years ago in South Africa. But the rhinos still need our help. People in some Asian countries purchase rhino horns, believing that they cure illnesses. (They don’t; rhino horn is made of the same stuff as human fingernails.) This demand is attracting poachers to the land, killing rhinos for their horns. 

Conservationists are developing creative ways to stop poaching. (One recent success is using hunting dogs to capture poachers.) But continuing to keep rhinos safe in parks is the best way to ensure the species’ success. Protected parks give calves a better chance to survive in the wild, with more protections against poachers. "Parks are one way to help save these animals," Hluhluwe-iMfolozi ranger Jason Render says. "They inspire people to care about and protect these animals."