The White Rhino, Ceratotherium simum might be the boldest of the big animals. It can be calm in the presence of a lion (photo) and happy to face down an elephant (photo.) When its calf playfully chases adult wildebeest, it reveals that this species is king of the herbivores: video.

   White rhino make a variety of sounds and they are social in nature. Their communal dung-piles, called middens (wildact), are visited by dominant bulls that go on patrol to leave their odour in them. Domestic animals need to avoid White rhino altogether, being too slow on their feet to risk a close encounter.
   Females defend territory when grass is not abundant and they'll drive youngsters away, who then stick together in groups. The white rhino must have been a problem for the first herdsmen on the Serengeti because it could not have shared grass peaceably with their livestock. 

A Southern white rhino bull marking a midden. Bulls weigh between 2 and 4 tonne. (Courtesy V. J. Ruiter, 2016, posted on Facebook -SANParks)

 Mala Mala, 1987: "We'd stopped for sundowner drinks in an open area when somebody spotted a large animal quite far off which, we soon realized, was running toward us. Puzzled, we re-packed the cooler box, climbed back onto the Landrover and backed away, not a moment too soon because the rhino ran straight through our spot to a midden on the far side of it (which we hadn't noticed.) He kicked, sprayed urine, and ran on into the bush-veld, giving no clue that he sensed we were there."

   It is believed that people from north Africa first brought livestock to the Serengeti hundreds or even thousands of years ago (serengeti.org and Jonathan Scott in bbcprogram.) There is fossil evidence dating from the Pleistocene epoch, i.e. 10 thousand to 2 million years ago, which tells us that the Northern white rhino once lived on the Serengeti (A.R.E. Sinclair.) It seems very likely that the northern herders caused the disappearance of all Serengeti White rhino at some time since that fossil record was laid down. Herders would not have persecuted the smaller Black rhino (Diceros bicornis) as much because it isn't a grass-eater: It browses leaves from shrubs, bushes, trees, and therefore doesn't defend grazing territory.

   Then came the men with guns from Europe who divided Africa into a patchwork of 'protectorates'. The European habit of taking 'trophies' home has been largely replaced by the appetite for rhino horn which we see today in Asia. However, westerners still make trips to kill African wildlife in spite of the impending extinction of several species (e.g. trumboys.)
   Twentieth century Africans killed rhino too. In 1924, H. Lang wrote: "the northern white rhino was an important part of the diet of local Africans ..there seemed to be 'no effective means' to stop the 'wholesale slaughter of the northern form' since proper policing of the vast areas was 'practically impossible'" (iucn.org/library.) 
 Regrettably, there was never a plan to re-introduce the Northern White rhino to the Serengeti. Surely, it could have found a niche somewhere in that rich ecosystem? Could it be that nobody wanted it back on lands where livestock was also being pastured? In the 19th and 20th centuries, a preference for eating beef might explain why tribesmen kept quiet while so many Europeans were killing so many rhinos for sport: More land was becoming suitable for raising cattle. (Modern Maasai say it's their 'tradition' that no game meat is eaten, only beef.) 
Help comes slowly for white rhino where people give priority to their cattle: A new reserve for elephants in East Africa was recently proposed on the understanding that cattle can live on it too: ft.com . Obviously, that means no cattle-chasing white rhino will be re-introduced.

   One country has bucked the trend: South Africa saved the Southern White rhino by fencing game reserves and allowing no livestock inside them. That country saved the whole species, given that the Northern subspecies (once, the most populous) has become too scarce to propagate.

    Northern WR: 2 (females)

    Southern WR: restored from 50 to 20,000±

IUCN in 2008: "an estimated 17,460 southern white rhino in the wild."

   White rhino keep a wilderness area in its natural state by chasing domestic animals out. If we conserve white rhino we might keep the Big 5 habitat.

Black rhino (Diceros bicornis) standing their ground. © M. Jinnah

Black Rhino were numerous in the 19th century. 
   It's all in the lips: The Black or 'Hook-lipped' rhino has lips that are shaped for browsing from bushes and small trees: It avoids competition with its cousin who has the 'square-lips'. 
   When the era of the 'Great White Hunter' had arrived in the 19th century, there were perhaps half a million Black rhino. Kenya still had 18,000 in 1970 but the Maasai Mara now has just 25 (ref. Fogle, 2016.)

Ernest Hemingway made big game hunting seem noble.

   The population of the Northern White rhino was almost as big as that of the Black in the 18th century but now there are only two specimens. Ernest Hemingway killed at least one white rhino. On Google now, things are summed up as follows: "Historically, uncontrolled hunting in the colonial era caused the major decline of white rhinos. Today, poaching for their horn is the main threat. ... Brought back from the brink of extinction, their survival is once again threatened by relentless poaching for the illegal trade in their horn."

Of lions and hunters.
   The decline of African lions parallels that of white rhino: There were about 450,000 lions in 1947 but fewer than 20,000 are alive today. Like the white rhino, they are restricted to a few localities in the smaller 'half' of Africa, i.e. in the equatorial East and parts of southern Africa (where British influence encouraged the first modern conservation efforts.)

   Jonathan Scott explained that severe drought recently caused viral distemper to become deadly in lions of the Maasai Mara. The lions had been eating starved buffalo that were over-burdened with ticks, and a tick-borne disease, babesiosis then attacked the lions' immune systems. With weakened immunity, many then succumbed to canine distemper which is carried into the wild by hyenas that have scavenged at human settlements where there are domestic dogs.
   Lions of the Ngorongoro Crater are now greatly at risk because an increase in human settlement means that mature males can no longer cross the crater rim and bring the benefit of genetic mixing. Inbreeding in the crater is taking its toll and the lion population has halved and become unhealthy. It's not likely that the 18 thousand Maasai people on the rim will re-open the corridor that lions once had.     

   Another problem for lion conservation is the habit that hunters have of selecting large, dark-maned males for trophies. Such males are the sires of most cubs in any population and, when one is killed, its cubs are destroyed by the nearest subordinate adult male to bring their mother back into oestrus. The destabilization of prides by removal of trophy males means that too many cubs do not reach maturity. While hunting fees might help wilderness areas to 'pay their way', there is need for a more sophisticated approach among hunters (also see bit.ly/sonsTrump.)

bit.ly/beastless

   A forbes.com 'myth buster' quotes Donald Trump Jr.: "This is why hunters so often give back by contributing to conservation”. The story of the Northern White Rhino shows that we cannot rely on hunters to do any species conservation: Hunters have killed Big 5 species for a couple of centuries and cannot "give" them "back" now. (Hunting might help keep White-tailed deer off the roads and farms in America but don't they also kill too many bears and mountain lions? d.mail.)

More white rhino history / Government intervention saved the species.

'Your lip is square, "wyd"!'

   On equatorial slopes in east Africa, grass grows well where volcanic soil does not sustain many trees. The White rhino's square lip is an adaptation for eating that grass (not far from the volcanoes.) During an ice age, White rhino preferred the equatorial climate but they fanned out in warmer times and some ended up in southern Africa. (Of those who drifted north, some descendants might have gone as far as England when there was a land-bridge: norfolk/rhino)
   When white hunters arrived in the 19th century from Europe and America, the Northern and Southern White rhino had become separate gene pools. It's not known whether fertile calves could have been reared by cross-breeding them. The Northern subspecies was still the biggest group, numbering in hundreds of thousands.

   By the 1950s, Southern Whites were in the worst decline and there was one estimate of only 50 survivors. (Another record says: "a single population of barely 20 animals in 1885" iucn.org.) It was realized that only political leadership might stop Ceratotherium from disappearing altogether: South African government decided to fund the efforts of Dr Ian Player's 'Operation Rhino' (see chart below.) With Player's ideas, Umfolozi Game Reserve became a successful breeding experiment. Nearby Hluhluwe GR was also stocked with rhino. From just 300 head in 1952, the program ultimately raised a regional population of 20,405 (ref. Save the Rhino.)

Some of Dr Player's 20,405 Southerners have been released north of South Africa but nowhere is safe anymore.  2013: In the BBC's, "Africa", people try to warn David Attenborough that there might soon be no more sightings of Namibian rhino associating at night: associating.  2015: 'Four dealers caught' indicates how Namibia had suddenly lost 77 rhino. (Only one or two were being killed in previous years.)  2016: Protection of wildlife isn't keeping pace with man-made change: NatGeo.

May 2016, Kruger National Park. "The number of incidences of poached rhinos being found on or near to popular transit roads in Kruger National Park have increased alarmingly in the last couple of months."  © OSCAP.

Hear Damien Mander describe his fight to defend 40% of Africa's rhino from international crime syndicates.

2016 - 'Operation Rhino' struggles in a ravaged economy.
   Trade sanctions led to hard times in southern Africa as businesses finally failed in the 1990s. Dr Player's legacy is a hard act to follow with the ZAR hitting an all-time low value of 0.05 Pound Sterling in June 2015 (bbc/news - The Rand was stable for decades previously and sometimes worth more than £0.50.)
Shoot-outs with poachers began in Umfolozi GR circa 1990. The Kruger National Park is even more difficult to defend with its long eastern border that faces Mozambique: growing-numbers-poached. It was estimated that poaching had increased fifty-fold between 2007 and 2014 (ref. savetherhino.) In Namibia by 2015, the increase was even worse: 77 killed in a desert population. Now, the percentage increase in poaching is so high that it's almost a meaningless value: 9,300%. An estimated 5000 have been shot between 2007 and 2016.
 New Chinese investment in Africa has attracted people who pay for unlimited harvesting of rare animals, e.g. 1000 kg-SA-pangolin-seized-in-Hong-Kong and half-tonne-pangolin-scales-at-jkenyata. There is a danger to biodiversity all across the continent, e.g. 68,000 python skins. 
Reaching into a once-secure South African heartland, there has been poaching of cherished animals in small reserves, e.g. Stagman and bpgrec.

© Brad Mulder

Protecting the Africa we all know and love by saving the 'indunas of the bushveld'.

The territorial behaviour of the White rhino keeps other animals on the move and thereby helps maintain the 'Big 5' ecosystem. (Wolves play a similar role in Yellowstone.)
   The security of rhino species is much lower than it was thirty years ago, even in South Africa. Social change in South Africa has been achieved through economic pressure and the government has become less effective at maintaining infrastructure and services (President Zuma was linked with corruption.) More and more conservation is left to private effort, e.g. rhinotearswine and Nkombe-Rhino.
South Africa can re-affirm its leadership if new government sees rhinos as 'indunas of the bush-veld', securing a national resource for tourism. Great Britain recently gave £5 million for fighting the trade in ivory and horn: bit.ly/£5millio. £5 million to South Africa as well could be seen as a reward for having saved the rhino previously?

Wildlife conservation is not adequate in post-colonial Africa: The White rhino was present on the Maasai Mara grasslands in the Pleistocene epoch (A.R.E. Sinclair.) While cattle herders might have driven them out, the modern Maasai preference for beef has probably had an impact on the Black rhino that survived: "Cattle, grazing illegally on the reserve, are diminishing plant life and driving away herbivores". In this decade, there has been a  70% reduction in Big 5 species associated with over-grazing by Maasai cattle. The BBC recently reported that most of those cattle died during a severe drought. The ecosystem is less able to recover from such weather extremes because of the previous over-grazing. The Maasai have taken to growing tea in the Serengeti reserve instead: BBC.  

Callous indifference is sometimes disguised as 'traditional activity', e.g. Ben Fogle shows how Hadza tribesmen (now calling themselves "Hadzabe") hunt baboons for breakfast and eat them on the spot. An alpha-male baboon was chased into a tree and it cried out many times as the tribesmen fired small arrows at it. The Hadzabe leader joked that chimp and gorilla should be on the menu too. In a later episode, Ben is called to see the remains of a young elephant that had strayed between some Serengeti homesteads and was killed with a spear. "What would the numbers be like if we weren't here?" said the American researcher. 

In southwestern Africa, Simon Reeve reveals how the newly-rich Botswana government has taken the South African model for conservation to a cruel extreme. They have been expelling aboriginal Bushmen to peripheral camps, confiscating their goats and forbidding the hunting of any wild animals for meat. Only a few decades ago, the same San people were expert scouts for South African soldiers facing communist insurgents backed by Cuba. Now the men sit around consuming alcohol. Prospecting for diamonds occurs where they have been evicted. 

The NY Times says that trophy-hunting fees do not benefit the protection of endangered species. 'Great' white hunters are still killing animals in countries where their conservation is inadequate.

Typical in South Africa now, this report in a facebook group called Outraged SA citizens against poaching. "5 rhinos shot in Boma in NW last night. One survived but the prognosis is not good." © OSCAP

A timeline of devastation (and only a small part of the story): 
   Three centuries ago, an eradication of American Bison began in a place where it was easy to see the devastation. It became a warning about the damage that we do to wildlife. When Europeans retreated from their African colonies (e.g. King Leopold of Belgium), they left tribal leaders who had little compassion for wildlife. 21st century Chinese interest in Africa brings a new onslaught on several species. Recently, people were murdered for trying to save elephants in the park that once had the Northern White rhino on a road to survival: Garamba.
+  2011:  The Western black rhino Diceros bicornis longipes was declared extinct. (black_rhino.)
+  2014:  The Northern White Rhino can no longer reproduce and the Southern subspecies has lost safe ground, e.g. 749-animals-killed. ('Big 5' habitat has shrunk to just a few areas in southern Africa, where it is defended by the patrolling habit of the dominant male rhino.)
+  22/08/2015.  'Save the Rhino' declared that the Sumatran rhino is extinct in Malaysia.
+  21/09/2015.  What it's like at a poaching incident: TheSanWildRhinoSanctuary/photos
+  27/09/2015.  8 more killed on a Sunday in Imfolozi-Hluhluwe (the Reserve that saved the White Rhino.)

June 2016 - It was mentioned on a new BBC cookery program in Shanghai that successive times of starvation, the most recent one caused by the Communist revolution, forced Chinese to start eating whatever animals they could find. Thus began some of the acts against animals that we find unspeakable. (2022: The BBC recently showed that Poyang Lake, once probably the World's the largest source of fresh-water fish, has been adversely affected by the damming of the Yangtze. Many people there no longer thrive on abundant fish stocks, and one family visited was eating snakes now.)

+  20/10/2015.  The Queen is hosting the Chinese chairman. On the same day, other chairmen pledged R660 billion investment for industry in South Africa. Meanwhile, Prince William has been appealing against the trade in ivory, but it wasn't announced on any main facebook pages or on TV hardly. (A PRC chairman agreed to a one-year ban on ivory trade. That should be enough time for more mines to be operating in SA? As in Zimbabwe, will wildlife waterholes suddenly acquire cyanide?  timeslive.co.za
+  22/10/2015.  Four Chinese dealers caught explains how Namibia has lost 77 this year. (Only one or two were being lost in previous years.)
+  Since new mines (a source of cyanide) were opened in Zimbabwe, Mozambique has lost half its elephants in 5 years. In response, there is complaint that South Africans shot poacher "compatriots" in the KNP.
+  China has begun to buy up the mineral wealth of South Africa: rio-tinto-and-anglo-sell-palabora-to-chinese-group
+  29/10/2015.  Only one country seems to be linked to 'large orders' for ivory and horns: 60 Elephants-cyanide
+  01/11/2015.  Asian perpetrators in Zimbabwe have their ID protected: top-cop-fingered-in-poaching
+  08/11/2015.  Another four Chinese, this time in Tanzania, also with nearly a dozen rhino horns: tanzanian-police-arrest-4-chinese. See image: en.starafrica.
..... many incidents later:
+  27/02/2016.  Yes, the Chinese eco-invasion of Africa has been a root cause: elephants-crime
+  March 2016.  As predicted, Chinese incentive is mobilizing locals within South Africa to butcher the handfuls of rhinos in dedicated, small wildlife parks, mostly along the eastern edge of the country, e.g. lloyd/post1 and rhinofoundation.
+  April 2016.  Yet more killed in specialized reserves that are far from the northern border of South Africa. It indicates the degree to which smuggling networks can infiltrate an African country. heraldlive.co.za/rhino
+  April 2016.  Another three in an area once totally safe for big game: second-attack-reserve/
+  April 2016.  Another mother rhino slain: video
+  May 8, 2016.  On the 90th birthday of Sir David Attenborough, and South Africa's Mothers' Day, six more slaughtered in the Northern Cape near Kimberly:  netwerk24.com
+  May 27, 2016: Some see poaching as their birthright in a new South Africa:  "The alleged kingpin attempted to disarm the Special Task Team member, severely beating and biting him, and then he got into his car and attempted to run him over. Back-up arrived and Gwala was arrested." 
+  June 2016.  "In the morning hours, a guard was overpowered on a farm in the Bela Bela area. The guard was fatally injured and the deceased's weapon was taken. Afterwards, a rhino was shot and the horn poached. At the moment, HPG members are following the tracks of 7 intruders." HPG
+  August 2016: Hunting of elephants has reached into the western half of southern Africa, where reverence for wildlife was almost taken for granted (and Bushmen were not squeezed out in favour of diamond interests.) : reinhardt.kusters 
+  For ongoing news, visit Hoedspruit Endangered SC or join Save our Rhino.

  Here's a page about one well-loved insect that belongs in Big 5 habitat: national/dung-beetles

"When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” ― John Muir

p.s. Can we ever hope to put an end to this sort of thing?