Life for Black Rhinos
Black Rhino
About the Black Rhino
The black rhino is one of a kind, its
closest counterpart is the white rhino.
You can distinguish a black rhino by its
curved upper lip while a white rhino
has a square lip. Their curved upper lip
helps them to be a browser not a grazer
meaning they eat things like leaves, soft
roots, and fruit that falls. The black rhi-
no however is in critical danger of being
completely extinct. From 1960 to 1995
the black rhino population dropped a
staggering 90% from the original popu-
lation number. This was due to poach-
ing by European hunters and settlers,
they would kill the rhino for fun or
would kill it for the ivory in its horns.
The population was at about 2,500 black
rhinos but since conservation methods
began the population has risen almost
around 50% in recent years with the
black rhino population reaching about
5,000 to 5,455.
The life of a black rhino is mostly lived
in solitary except for when they mate.
For males they tend to live alone, for fe-
males they may stay with their calfs for
an extended period of time but most of-
ten time don’t have a calf until they are
about 6 or 7 years old. Despite living in
solitude a male black rhino cannot claim
territory until it reaches the age of 10-12.
A black rhino can live to be about 40-50
years of age. It lives in the plains of Afri-
ca, mostly the east and south spreading
through almost half the countries in Af-
rica. There are higher concentrations of
black rhinos in countries like Zambia,
Zimbabwe, and Botswana where they
were reintroduced into the wild by con-
servationists trying to assist in bringing
the animals population up from its criti-
cally endangered state.
Preservatoin Efforts
Preservation efforts are being taken to bring
the population back to flourishing but it takes
lots of time to bring back 90% of the popula-
tion. A few things that WWF are doing is try-
ing to stop poaching, creating safe spaces for
the rhino population to grow, and also mov-
ing rhinos around from high density areas of
rhinos to low areas. They reason for moving
the rhinos is to make it so that the population
doesn’t stagnate and can continue to go up.
As for poaching, WWF is working with Ken-
ya, Namibia, and South Africa to create laws
against poaching of black rhinos and having
rangers equip with the tools necessary to stop
poachers as well. Those three countries will
be the areas where the WWF is going to try
and have 87% of the total black rhino popu-
lation so that they can roam freely and hope-
fully come back from the brink of extinction.