Africa-Press – Mauritius. Poaching numbers for rhinos in Africa and Asia have fallen to the lowest levels since 2013, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said, but the species is still threatened.
According to a study released by the IUCN, 5.3% of all rhinos in Africa were poached in 2015, but that rate dropped to 2.3% in 2021, with 90% of cases being reported in South Africa, the country in which the rhino population fell by 1.6% annually between 2018 and 2021, with just over 22,000 of these animals now.
Experts lean towards the possibility that this improvement in numbers is linked to measures to combat the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced people to stay at home to contain the spread of the virus, says the Efe agency.
According to the IUCN study, this could explain why poaching increased last year, to 451 rhinos poached in South Africa and six in Kenya, compared to 394 in South Africa and zero in Kenya last year.
previous. Between 2018 and 2020, there were between 575 and 923 rhino horns being illegally sold in markets, while between 2016 and 2017 the number was 2,378.
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