Anti-poaching efforts rhinos in South Africa less effective than previously thought

Wildlife poaching is a major problem worldwide. Demand for products from these animals comes from a rapidly growing affluent class in some cultures, where parts of animals such as rhinos are seen as medicines or status-enhancing luxury goods. The demand in China and Vietnam for rhino horn is a good example of this and has led to a wave of rhino poaching in South Africa in particular.

Jasper Eikelboom (WUR): 'Since 2015, the number of poached rhinos in Kruger National Park has steadily declined, prompting the South African minister of environment to optimistically attribute this decline to South Africa's "relentless" anti-poaching efforts. However, recently published South African counts of the rhino population in Kruger National Park paint a different picture. These figures suggest an alternative explanation for the decline in poaching: there are not fewer poachers, but fewer rhinos to poach.'

The WUR researchers wanted to determine whether fewer poachers or fewer rhinos are the cause of the decline in poaching between 2015 and 2022. Their calculations are based on the premise that if there are fewer rhinos, it will take longer for a poacher to search for a rhino at random.

Poaching effort

The two researchers show how the average travel distance of poachers to their first encounter with a rhino (this is called poaching effort) increases when the number of rhinos in a given area decreases. Because of this relationship and the decreasing number of rhinos in Kruger National Park, the average poaching effort has increased dramatically and continuously since 2015.

'When we then multiply this average poaching effort by the number of poaching incidents in Kruger National Park to obtain the total distance travelled by successful groups of poachers (i.e. poaching pressure), we show that poaching pressure on rhinos in Kruger National Park has been persistently high since 2013,' says Prins.

Huge decline in rhino population

The huge decline in the African rhino population over the past 10 years (from about 11 thousand rhinos in 2012 to 2 thousand rhinos in 2022 in Kruger National Park), combined with approximately constant poaching pressure every year, implies that anti-poaching efforts have not been enough to prevent a sharp decline in the population.

'If anti-poaching efforts had been effective in reducing rhino poaching, then this should have caused an additional decline in the number of poached rhinos, on top of the effect caused by decreasing rhino densities, which apparently was not the case,' Eikelboom said.

Prins adds that some national parks are so large, with such long boundaries, that it is also for a well-intentioned government virtually impossible to protect these sought-after target animals. Prins: 'It's like spreading all the Van Goghs from the Kröller-Müller museum all over the Veluwe at every random ten-thousandth fir tree, and then expecting them to be able to be properly protected.'

Eikelboom: 'We argue that the key to the survival of the African black and white rhino lies in protecting as many rhinos as possible in small and well-guarded "safe havens", while our long-term focus should be on reducing the demand for rhino horn in consumer countries.'