The World Wildlife Fund releases footage of a small family of Javan rhinos in the Ujung Kulon National Park

This article is more than 11 years old

This article is more than 11 years old

Fresh video images of the world's most endangered mammal – the elusive Javan rhino – were released today.

Just 60 of the 2,300kgs animals are thought to remain alive in the Indonesian jungles.

But the Javan rhinos, which grow more than three metres long, are extremely shy and efforts to capture pictures of them with stills cameras were often frustrated because the animals flee at the sound of the shutter.

Now the environmental group WWF has caught images of the rhino on video cameras in the rugged Ujung Kulon National Park on the southern tip of Java, Indonesia.

The grainy clips show a mother and calf, accompanied by a large male, wallowing in muddy holes. Other footage shot at night reveals the female rhino chasing a pig away.

Few of the WWF researchers who have studied the Javan rhino for the past 20 years have ever seen the animal. The latest project used a web of 34 video cameras activated by movement sensors that were set up in likely haunts.

"The videos are showing a lot of young animals but not many calves," said WWF Asian rhino co-ordinator, Christy Williams. "So there's evidence of breeding, but not enough. A healthy rhino population should be increasing at about 7% a year, or three or four calves. Here we're only seeing three or four calves every four or five years."