Shame

New York Red · October 26, 2011

Vietnam's rhino has gone extinct: WWF

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- The critically endangered Javan rhinoceros is now extinct in Vietnam, after the last surviving animal was evidently poached for its horn, conservation group WWF announced Tuesday, declaring it "a major conservation failure."

The Javan rhino, once widespread throughout Southest Asia, is now believed to be confined to one population of less than 50 individuals in a small national park on Indonesia's Java island.

WWF said the last known rhino in Vietnam, a female, was found dead in Cat Tien National Park, southern Vietnam, in April 2010 with a bullet in its leg and its horn removed.

In a detailed report, the group blamed the iconic species disappearance on the Vietnamese government's failure to bring "rampant, ubiquitous poaching of wildlife" under control, as well as on habitat loss and inadequate conservation efforts.

"This extinction was the result of a number of failings that are indicative of the conservation challenge in Vietnam. There was insufficient political support to secure adequate habitat, prevent encroachment, and protect the remaining rhinoceros from hunting," WWF said.

It warned that many other animals in Vietnam -- such as the tiger, the Asian elephant, the Siamese crocodile and the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey -- face the prospect of extinction there due to habitat loss, hunting pressure and lack of basic protection.

"Vietnam is on the verge of an extinction crisis," WWF said.

"Significant improvements need to be made in law enforcement and protected area management in Vietnam, and the way in which conservation organizations cooperate with protected areas, to ensure that other species do not share the same fate as the Javan rhinoceros."

The Javan rhino has similarly disappeared from Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, Bangladesh and northeastern India.

The rhinos were once common in lowland areas of southern Vietnam and hunting of them was popular during French colonial times.

Due to subsequent over-hunting, decades of warfare and habitat loss, the rhinos were believed to have gone extinct in the latter half of the 20th century, until 1988 when an individual was hunted from the area of Cat Tien National Park, leading to the discovery of a small population.

WWF said the widespread decline of Vietnam's wildlife populations is fueled by increasing demand in the traditional medicine trade and the domestic wild meat trade, which is booming due to Vietnam's rapidly growing urban middle and upper classes.

With rhino horns fetching up to $100,000 per kilogram, "We must ensure that what happened to the Javan rhinoceros in Vietnam is not repeated in Indonesia a few years down the line," Susie Ellis of the International Rhino Foundation said in a statement.

Kvarme Ate My Food · October 26, 2011

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