Rhinoceros have long been illegally hunted for their horns. Poaching remains a key threat to rhinos and in particular in some populations.
The rhino population in Africa has declined about 1.6% each year, from an estimated 23,562 animals in 2018 to 22,137 animals at the end of 2021 (Report by International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Species Survival Commission (SSC) African and Asian Rhino Specialist Groups in conjunction with TRAFFIC).
By the end of 2021, there were an estimated 22,137 rhinos in Africa. That’s a total of 6,195 black rhinos Diceros bicornis ("critically endangered" on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species), which was about 12% higher than the estimate at the end of 2017, and 15,942 white rhinos Ceratotherium simum ("near threatened"), which was a drop of about 12% on 2017. The majority of the reported poaching cases (90%) were in South Africa, involving mostly white rhinos in Kruger National Park.
Poaching rates were at their peak in 2007 at 5.3% of the total population, dropping to 3.9% in 2018 and to 2.3% in 2021. A total of at least 2,707 rhinos were poached in Africa between 2018 and 2021. Kenya reported no rhino poaching in 2020, during Covid lockdowns) while South Africa reported 394 rhinos lost to poachers that year.
Information also suggests that the estimated amount of rhino horns entering illegal markets has fallen since 2013. Between 575 and 923 rhino horns entered the illegal trade each year between 2018 and 2020, compared to about 2,378 each year between 2016 and 2017. (The amount of seized illegal horns shot up in 2019, likely because of more laws and tighter enforcement.) Because not all countries report seizures consistently; researchers say they can’t completely understand patterns with illegal rhino horns.