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The Suma­tran rhino — one of the most crit­i­cally endan­gered mam­mals on the planet — may have just received a lifeline.

A new sci­en­tific pub­li­ca­tion from Wildlife Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety (WCS) and the Uni­ver­sity of Mass­a­chu­setts — Amherst (UMass) applies an enhanced pop­u­la­tion sur­vey tech­nique to iden­tify, for the first time, pri­or­ity for­est patches for inten­sive rhino pro­tec­tion of the remain­ing pop­u­la­tions of Suma­tran Rhino — one of the most endan­gered large mam­mals on the planet. Assess­ing pop­u­la­tion and spa­tial dis­tri­b­u­tion of this very rare species is chal­leng­ing because of their elu­sive­ness and very low pop­u­la­tion num­ber. The results of the rhino pop­u­la­tion sur­vey will appear in the cur­rent issue of the open-​access jour­nal PLOS ONE and pro­vides vital data to sup­port a final attempt to pre­vent the extinc­tion of the Suma­tran rhino.

The Suma­tran rhino once ranged from north-​east India to Indone­sian Bor­neo and may have num­bered in the tens of thou­sands only 200 years ago. How­ever, the unyield­ing demand for rhino horn in tra­di­tional Chi­nese med­i­cine has reduced this species to per­haps less than 100 wild indi­vid­u­als, with no viable pop­u­la­tions occur­ring out­side of the Indone­sian island of Suma­tra. The Suma­tran rhino (Dicerorhi­nus suma­tren­sis) is Crit­i­cally Endan­gered accord­ing the IUCN Red List of Threat­ened Species™.

The study pro­vides urgently needed infor­ma­tion on where the remain­ing rhi­nos are dis­trib­uted. Using rhino sign data col­lected in 3 pre­sumed strong­holds cov­er­ing more than 3 mil­lion ha, a spatially-​explicit habi­tat model was devel­oped. The model pre­dicted that rhi­nos now only occupy 237,100 ha in the Leuser land­scape, 63,400 ha in Way Kam­bas National Park and 82,000 ha in Bukit Barisan Sela­tan National Park.

In total, they occupy only 13 per­cent of the sur­veyed area. How­ever, the study iden­ti­fied five “Inten­sive Pro­tec­tion Zones” that are of unri­valled impor­tance in sav­ing Suma­tran rhinos.

The paper’s authors rec­om­mend four vital actions achiev­able with strong polit­i­cal will:
1. For­mally estab­lish­ing the five Inten­sive Pro­tec­tion Zones iden­ti­fied in this study, and ensur­ing zero poach­ing is achieved by sig­nif­i­cantly scaling-​up law enforce­ment efforts
2. Ensur­ing the via­bil­ity of the Inten­sive Pro­tec­tion Zones by pre­vent­ing sev­eral planned new roads from bisect­ing them in the Bukit Barisan Sela­tan and Leuser land­scapes
3. Con­sol­i­dat­ing the small and scat­tered rhino pop­u­la­tion in Bukit Barisan Sela­tan National Park and the out­side core pop­u­la­tion of Leuser land­scape iden­ti­fied by this study. Rec­og­niz­ing that this will require strong polit­i­cal will and major finan­cial sup­port
4. Rec­og­niz­ing that Suma­tran Rhino is likely to go extinct if no actions are taken, as hap­pened with the last Javan Rhino in Viet­nam in 2010

The Direc­tor of Bio­di­ver­sity Con­ser­va­tion of the Indone­sian Min­istry of Envi­ron­men­tal and Forestry and chair­man of Joint Rhino Con­ser­va­tion Sec­re­tariat of Indone­sia, Bam­bang Dahono Adji, com­mented, “We wel­come these impor­tant new results in sup­port­ing Indonesia’s ongo­ing endeav­ours to fully imple­ment its Suma­tran Rhi­noc­eros Action Plan.”

Suma­tran rhino calf born at Way Kam­bas National Park rhino sanc­tu­ary
In 2012 a healthy male Suma­tran rhino calf was born in the rhino sanc­tu­ary Way Kam­bas National Park in Suma­tra. The new­born was the off­spring of a wild female Suma­tran rhino and a male that was born at the Cincin­nati Zoo in the U.S in 2001. The male was flown to his ances­tral home, Suma­tra, in 2007 in hopes that he would breed with one of the rhino sanctuary’s three females. The new baby was only the fourth Suma­tran rhino born in cap­tiv­ity in the past cen­tury, and the first one to be born in Indonesia.

(Source: Inter­na­tional Rhino Foun­da­tion and Mongabay)

Joe Wal­ston, WCS’s Vice Pres­i­dent for Global Pro­grams urged, “For the first time we have a clear idea of where the pri­or­ity rhino’s sites are, we have the tools and tech­niques to pro­tect them, and now must ensure a con­certed effort by all agen­cies to bring the Suma­tran rhino back from the brink of extinction.”

(Source: WCS news release, 16.09.2015; Umass Amherst news release, 16.09.2015)