Rhino poaching drops 16% in South Africa, marking a positive trend. Credit: TimesLive
(The Post News)—On Thursday, the government announced that South Africa recorded a rough estimate of a16% drop in poaching in 2024. According to estimates, 499 animals were murdered in 2023 and 420 in 2024 for their horns.
In addition to having the world’s biggest population of near-threatened white rhinos, South Africa is home to about half of Africa’s severely endangered black rhino population. The main protein in rhino horns, keratin, which is also present in human hair and fingernails, is valued in various East Asian nations for its use in jewelry and traditional medicine.
In a statement, environment minister Dion George said that from the rhinos that were poached in 2024, 320 of them were killed on state properties and 100 on privately-owned parks, reserves, or farms. George had a partial attribution to the year-on-year decline to a dehorning program in the hardest-hit province by dehorning, KwaZulu-Natal.
Because the Kruger National Park is isolated and difficult to police, George had expressed alarm about the recent increase in rhino deaths there.
The number of rhinos poached in the Kruger Park increased from 78 in 2023 to 88 in 2024. George said in a statement that lie detector testing for employees in poaching hot spots like the Kruger and Hluhluwe-iMfolozi parks is part of the government’s efforts to combat poaching.
However, Namibia reported on Thursday that the number of rhino poaching instances increased from 69 in 2023 to 83 in 2024.
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