A hundred years ago, at the turn of the century, there were one million Western Black Rhinos – today there are zero. Seven years ago the Western Black Rhino was finally declared extinct, and perhaps most sadly its extinction had nothing to do with natural causes, and everything to do with humans.  

The Black rhinos from Africa were most commonly found in Cameroon, Chad, the Central African Republic, Sudan and South Sudan.  In the first few decades of the last century, they were hunted for sport. Sports hunting killed many Rhinos, but really this practice was only a needle in the haystack. In the next decades, deforestation and the creation of industrial settlements led many rhinos to lose their homes. Plus, the settlers would kill the rhinos to prevent them from entering their farms and settlements.  By the 1950’s, Chinese doctors believed that shavings of rhino horns dissolved in boiling water was a medicine useful to cure fever, gout, and even cancer.  As a result, from 1960- 1995, 98 percent of Black Rhinos were slaughtered.  Conservation organizations tried to save them. By 1997, only ten were left. By 2003, many conservationists concluded that the species had gone extinct.  In 2011,  the extinction of the Western Black Rhino was officially declared.

Humans are to blame for the loss of the Western Black Rhino.  As a world, we have much to learn from the devastating extinction of this innocent creature.  We must not let the Black rhino (~5000 left), Sumatran rhino (~100), and the Javan rhino (only 67 left as of 2015) undergo the same fate as its cousin.   

I’m Izzykat and remember to bikepenguin !