A family of three white rhinos grazes in the Greater Kruger region. (Photo: Morkel Erasmus / Gallo Images) 
After two consecutive years of growing numbers, the population of white rhinos in Africa declined significantly in 2024 in the face of poaching and other factors such as drought and past overcounts, according to a report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Commissioned by the Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in advance of its next Conference of the Parties (COP) late this year, the report is a sobering reminder that rhinos still face many threats – and that population estimates are just that.
According to the report, while the black rhino population in Africa rose more than 5% in 2024 to 6,788, white rhino numbers fell 11.2% to 15,752 – a major reversal. In 2022, white rhino numbers in Africa increased for the first time since 2012, a trend that remained in place in 2023.
Distribution of rhinos in Africa
South Africa led the way in 2024, with a more than 15% decline in the country’s population to 14,074 white rhinos. The net result was a decline on the continent of almost 7% in total rhino numbers.
“In addition to illegal killing, African rhino losses were driven by factors such as extended droughts, management limitations ... population corrections to previous surveys, and/or poor population reporting from some countries or jurisdictions,” the report says.
Other trends are at play. South Africa, for example, has also been exporting white rhinos. The NGO African Parks – which bought the 2,000-strong herd of rhino tycoon John Hume in 2023 – translocated 70 to Rwanda this year.
Read more: Dehorning bears fruit as rhino poaching deaths drop in 2024
In South Africa, official government data showed a decline in the number of rhinos killed in 2024 to 420 from around 500 in 2023.
Still, poaching pressure remains – even if it declines, a dead rhino is one less – and the report cites it among three key drivers that led to the fall in the estimate of South Africa’s white rhino numbers.
“First, 420 white rhinos were poached, with 47.1% of those losses occurring in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province,” the report says.
“Second, some provinces did not update their population estimates after 2023. Third, there is uncertainty about whether distance sampling methods overestimated the population size in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park.”
Uncertainty
A couple of things come to mind from this state of affairs. The first is that some provincial governments simply did not do their jobs, and the second is that there are concerns about past overestimates at reserves such as Hluhluwe.
That underscores the point that there seems to be some uncertainty around rhino numbers at a time when certainty is required to aid policy makers and conservationists.
The report itself is aimed at providing guidance for discussions at the CITES COP20 in Uzbekistan from 24 November to 5 December. These meetings, held every two or three years, review the conservation status of numerous species and consider the protections required when it comes to the international trade in animals and animal parts.
For example, it seems unlikely that the next CITES will lift the global ban on the international trade in rhino horn – a ban that critics contend has fuelled poaching to meet Asian demand for the product. Supporters of the ban maintain that a legal trade will simply open the floodgates to more poaching, with illicit horn laundered with legal supplies.
South Africa was the only range state that reported domestic trade in rhino horn. The moratorium on such trade domestically was lifted in 2017.
“For the 2022 to 2024 reporting period, South Africa reported permits issued for domestically trading 10.6kg (2022), 1,079.0kg (2023) and 203.7kg (2024) of horn from southern white rhinos, and 3.2kg (2023) and 7.0kg (2024) of horn from black rhinos. South Africa did not provide prices for these sales,” the report says.
A decline was detected in the number of horns sourced by the illegal international trade, but the report urged “... the need [for] caution when interpreting trends.”
That is not the only trend that needs to be treated with caution. The estimated increases in South Africa’s white rhino population in 2022 and 2023 – a cautiously hopeful sign – now have a scent of doubt. DM