By Meghan Frank and Jessica Hopper, Rock Center
In South Africa, home to three quarters of the last remaining rhinos on the planet, conservationists, private game reserve owners and security forces are waging a desperate battle against poachers intent on killing the country’s rhinos for their lucrative horns.
“It is an epidemic. It’s a war that right now we’re losing,” Graeme Rushmere said. “It’s not a South African issue as such, it’s really a global issue.”
Rushmere owns Kariega Game Reserve, a nearly 25,000 acre private reserve. The reserve is home to critically endangered black rhinos and white rhinos.
Rhinos have roamed the Earth for millions of years, but at the turn of the twentieth century there were only about 50 white rhinos left in the world. All were in South Africa. Over the course of several decades, South Africans brought the white rhino back from the brink of extinction. Through incredible conservation work, there are almost 20,000 white rhinos today. The recent spike in poaching has South Africans worried that all of their hard work to save the rhino will be reversed.
Just a decade ago, only about a dozen rhinos were poached each year. Last year, poachers killed more than 400 rhinos.
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