Northern White Rhino (Ceratotherum simum cottoni)

The Northern white rhino is listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species , in ironic contrast to its relative, the Southern white rhino, which now is the most abundant of all rhino taxa on the planet today.  Once ranging in large numbers throughout north-central Africa south of the Sahara, wild Northern white rhino populations are thought to have been extirpated from their last known site in Garamba National Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Four Northern white rhinos were present in Garamba in late 2006, but there was only one sighting in 2007.  Surveys undertaken in 2008 have failed to confirm their presence.  

The presumed loss of this last population can be attributed to civil wars and attendant disruptions which worsened the already-dire poaching situation.  In the 1970s and 80s, poachers reduced the number of Northern white rhinos from 500 to 15, however by the early 1990s through mid-2003, the rhino population had recovered to their low point to more than 32 rhinos.

View the archive of Garamba Press Releases - To Be Added Soon

Another ten Northern white rhino are maintained in two zoological institutions: six (two males and four females) at the Dvur Kralove in the Czech Republic and the remaining male and female at the San Diego Wild Animal Park in the United States.  The Northern white rhino in captivity have not reproduced well.  One female calf was born at Dvur Kralove in 2000, the first captive born of this subspecies in a decade.