By Tarik El Baraka
Morocco World News
Rabat, June 20, 2013
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the world’s largest conservation network, Africa’s Western black rhino is now officially extinct.
“The animal was last seen in 2006 and since then there have been no reports of rhino sighting and this subspecies is considered extinct,” The IUCN said.
The extinct animal is a subspecies of the black rhino which is listed as “ critically endangered” by the IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species since it has witnessed a remarkable decline in population estimated at 97.6% since 1960.
“ Relentless hunting of the species, clearances of land for settlement, agriculture and large-scaled poaching caused a dramatic 98% collapse in numbers of the species which could have numbered at one stage around 850,000,” The IUCN added.
Black rhinos are extinct in all of Cameroon, Chad, Rwanda and possibly Ethiopia but reintroduced in Botswana, Malawi, Swazilan and Zambia.
Major threats that are facing the remaining rhinos lumbering in Africa such as poaching for the international horn trade have called for serious conservation actions to be taken.
“ International commercial trade in Black Rhinos and their products have been prohibited and measures and legislation were implemented,” IUCN said.
