Articles for Intl Rhino Foundation

South Africa may use rhinoceros DNA and track low-flying helicopters to fight a record surge in poaching that is threatening the endangered animals.

The plight of a baby rhino whose mother was left to die after poachers drugged it and sawed off its horn has highlighted a resurgent threat from criminal poaching gangs in South Africa.

The recent brazen slaying of two rhinos--a pregnant mother with her two-year-old calf--in a highly popular wildlife park on the outskirts of Johannesburg, has focused attention on the growing poaching crisis in South Africa, a country renowned for the conservation of the endangered animal.

Poachers killed a record number of rhinos in South Africa last year and are already on track to surpass that number again in 2010, an expert with the country's national parks said Friday.

A female rhino that was killed with its calf by poachers at a Gauteng nature reserve was pregnant and due to give birth in three months.

The South African National Parks (SANParks) said in a statement today [Friday, 28 May 2010] that rhino poaching throughout the country has escalated at an alarming rate since the beginning of the year.

Sophisticated "mafias" have turned their eyes south and are behind the increase in the number of rhinos poached in South Africa over the past three years.

The South African government has allocated two million rands (about $270,000) to set up a unit to tackle wildlife crimes, mainly rhino poaching in the country.

The rhinoceros walking down the road at South Africa's largest game reserve had no horns, one of the few to survive a surge in poaching that has sent killings to a 15-year high.

The slaughtering of rhinos in SA is continuing unabatedly.

Poachers have killed 14 rhinos in South Africa this year, the national parks authority said Friday, announcing military patrols in the world-famous Kruger National Park.

South Africa’s official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) party last week urged President Jacob Zuma’s government to pressure Zimbabwe and other neighbouring countries to act to curb exports of poached rhino horns.

Two boys made a startling discovery of a dead white rhinoceros in the Nkomazi River.

South Africa is witnessing a massive surge in rhino poaching, an activity blamed on criminal syndicates striving to meet an "insatiable appetite" for rhinoceros horn in east Asia.

South African Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica has announced the formation of a new special investigations team dedicated to the eradication of rhino poaching.

The poaching of rhinos has increased in South Africa, Environmental Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica said on Wednesday.

Some of the Eastern Cape’s top game reserves are “under siege” by brazen poachers targeting white rhino populations for their horns which fetch high prices on the black market.

A WHITE rhino bull has become the latest victim of poachers in the Eastern Cape – it was shot and killed on a game reserve outside Alexandria, and both its horns were removed.

An integrated approach was needed to halt the growing numbers of rhinos being killed by poachers, Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica agreed on Tuesday.

Poachers have killed 84 rhinos in South Africa since January and KwaZulu-Natal has the second highest number of incidents.