Rhino poaching in South Africa is at record levels, the country’s environment minister has warned, with an 18 % rise in the first four months of 2015 on the same period a year ago.

Edna Molewa said that by the end of April 2015 the number of rhino lost to poachers was 393 for the whole country, and 290 of them were poached in the Kruger national park. In 2014, 331 rhinos were poached including 212 in Kruger, she said at a media conference in Pretoria.

The vast park bordering Mozambique is home to the majority of South Africa’s 20,700 rhinos, which are killed for their horns, used in traditional Asian medicine.

Despite the appointment of a former general to oversee anti-poaching operations, a new record is set each year in the number of rhinos killed as South Africans and Mozambicans join the lucrative trade.

A total of 1,215 rhinos were killed in 2014, compared with 1,004 in 2013, 668 in 2012 and 448 in 2011.

The numbers began surging in 2008, when 83 rhinos were killed. The year before that just 13 animals were poached.

Sunday’s public briefing on rhino poaching was the first the South African government has given in months.

“This is not deliberate, it is because of the heavy load of work that we have,” Molewa said. “We are soldiering on, we do think that this fight will have to be won and we will win it.”

Since 2008, South African authorities have struggled to contain the carnage despite moving some animals out of poaching hotspots in the Kruger.

South Africa’s police commissioner, Riah Phiyega, reported that, as of the end of April, park rangers detained 132 suspected poachers, crediting the use of helicopters and anti-poaching dogs for a rise in arrests.

In South Africa, many people buy beaded “Rhino Force” bracelets and affix life-size red plastic rhino horns to the bonnets of their cars in support of the anti-rhino poaching cause.

The government in February announced it would investigate whether the trade in rhino horn should be legalised and regulated to try to halt the poaching.

Agence France-Presse contributed to this report