Just six of this sub-species now remain alive in the world, following the death of a 34-year old male at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. Although sudden, his death is thought to be from natural causes. To compound matters, there is also only one breeding female left, following a period of intense rhino horn poaching across Africa. South Africa is the epicentre for this crime, with 791 killed already this year in the country. As you will see from the statistical illustration below, poaching levels are out of control and reaching epidemic proportions not seen since the early 1990s crisis.

A specialist wildlife crime unit has been launched by Interpol in Nairobi, Kenya to tackle the growing problem and arrests are on the increase, however, corruption continues to exacerbate the illegal activity, with park rangers and even anti-poaching campaigners complicit with the brutal killings and subsequent horn smuggling to key markets such as China and Vietnam. This individual was born in captivity at a zoo in the Czech Republic and transported to the conservancy in 2009, along with one other male and two females, in an attempt to prevent the species from only appearing in history books. Outside of the Kenyan conservancy, the other surviving rhinos are at zoos in the Czech Republic and San Diego, United States. With such a limited gene pool, the chances of a calf being born are remote and the outlook is therefore looking depressingly bleak for this most persecuted of creatures.

http://www.wwf.org.uk/what_we_do/illegal_wildlife_trade/