The West African black rhino appears to have become extinct, according to the World Conservation Union (IUCN).

A mission to their last known habitat in northern Cameroon failed to find any rhinos or signs of their existence.

The sub-species has declined in recent decades due primarily to poaching, which has also brought the northern white rhino close to extinction.

In East and Southern Africa, numbers of related sub-species are rising with the use of effective protection measures.

But after two decades of warnings, the western black rhino has apparently met its final end, according to the findings of an extensive expedition by three specialists earlier this year.

Source:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5167266.stm

Congratulation humanity. You've made the world a happier brighter place full of goodness and enlightenment.

I wonder if the poacher who took the last wild rhino had any concept of what he was doing.

And the world is the lesser by this.

I'll guarantee that the poachers knew what they were doing, when they cut off the Rhinos horn.
Which finds its way into China, where it is ground down to a powder. Where it is mistakenly believed that it has aphrodisiac propertys.

Let us hope the Chinese are right. Maybe this will lead to fewer of them. ;-)

I am grateful that I can drive less than 20 kilometers and look at rhino's. I hope this will last.

From what I've read in recent years, rhino horn is used for making dagger handles in Yemen and other Middle Eastern countries. Also, interestingly, drugs like Viagra are replacing wildlife products in the Far East.

The Chinese do use rhino horn "medicinally," but apparently we've been sold a bill of goods regarding its use as an aphrodisiac. (see: http://www.lewa.org/rhino-horn-uses.php)

Yeah ... didn't anyone tell them that they should be taking yohimbine?

soilguy, your URL got me a 404. Do you have another link?

Come on, if we want to protect wildlife we've got to pay. It not anyone's fault whose poor, it's anyone whose's rich. We can buy and protect places for rhino's if we want to. When a Rhino is important to you, then you are obviously not starving. The best protection for wildlife is a unwild humanity. Until we sort our own problems we'll never be able to look after them properly. And it's not criminals either, they only exist when society is ambigious about it's motivations.

Hi Amaranth, Soilguy's link is Ok once you delete the ) , he accidentally included at the end of his URL.

Thanks, Mike, I didn't catch that. It is a good link, very informative.

Amaranth