The future of the key black rhino populations in Zimbabwe could be at serious risk, due to an increase in poaching in the wake of political unrest and land invasions, WWF, the conservation organization warned today. Following the land invasions, poaching and snaring of rare species in and around the conservancies has increased. One rhino, a three-year old male, was successfully immobilized and the snare removed from its rear right leg, where it had been embedded down to the bone.
Efforts are currently underway to track and free the second rhino.
National Parks promptly gave the necessary permission to enable fast intervention to save these rhinos, but the breakdown in management systems in the whole area is making what is already a difficult job near impossible, and we fear it won't be long before more of the rhinos are either accidentally caught in snares, or worse, deliberately poached. Black rhino numbers crashed throughout Africa from more than 60,000 in the 1970s to less than 2,500 in 1992. The rhinos bred in these conservancies are vital for restocking other areas where they have already been wiped out by poachers. The World Conservation Union, show that numbers of black rhino continue to increase in the wild, both groups warned that there is no room for complacency. The problems facing the conservancies in Zimbabwe highlight the rhino's fragile situation.