Poachers killed 1.054 rhinos in south Africa last year, a 10.3% less than in 2015, said the south african Government last Monday in a press release.
The decrease was due to a strengthening of the security and other measures designed to fight poachers in south Africa, the country with the largest population of rhinos in the world, according to the department of Environment. Their horns are highly coveted in certain parts of Asia, especially in Vietnam, where its horn used in traditional asian medicine.
The index of poaching on rhinos in south Africa skyrocketed between 2008, with 83 rhinos killed, until 2014, where it is encrypted in 1,215 copies dead by poachers.
In the Kruger National Park, which boasts the largest population of the species and is the epicenter of the massacre, in 2016, it found 662 carcasses of rhinos, a 19,85 % less than in the year 2015, despite a steady increase in the number of illegal incursions into the Kruger, as reported in a press release the Ministry of Environment of south africa.
In 2016 there was a big spike of activities related to poaching (such as camps of poachers, contacts, junctions, signals, tracks and shooting), with 2883 cases in the Park, in comparison with the 2466 registered in the same period of 2015.
The criminal gangs are heavily armed, well-funded and transnational groups do not stop at nothing to get rhino horns.
While there has been a decrease in the number of rhinos killed in the Kruger and Mpumalanga, the number of rhinos being killed, unfortunately, increased in other areas. This indicates that the bands are feeling the pressure of the interventions employed in the Kruger.
Unfortunately, in 2016, a total of 46 elephants were killed, poached in the Kruger National Park, so that interventions to combat the poaching of rhinos is also in use to respond to this emerging threat.
South africa currently owns 80% of the rhinos in Africa, with at least 18,000-a-rinos whites and 2,000 blacks, and has endured the greater part of the cases of poaching in the continent since 2008.