Africa Wild

Latest official rhino numbers (estimates) from Kruger National Park



Ferreira SM, le Roex N, Greaver C (2019) Species-specific drought impacts on black and white rhinoceroses. PLoS ONE 14(1): e0209678. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0209678


https://journals.plos.org/plosone/artic ... ne.0209678

Quite a drop for white rhinos in 4 years but the blacks are increasing. I wonder who accurate these figures are?

Am interested in the management removal?

RobertT wrote: ↑Thu Jun 06, 2019 8:12 am Am interested in the management removal?

Me too.

Might be relocation and moving orphans to rehab facilities, but what about the lethal ones

These numbers are guesswork...if one reads from the beginning of this thread one can see how estimates jump wildly!!

They are useless until a proper aerial census is done, and I'm afraid egos have become so invested in the current method that they would not dare have their guesstimates exposed as false...

Something that I do not understand is these statistics (because that's fundamentally what they are) is the delay. Why only 2017? Those for 2018 should be ready after six months. Slowly and not even surely

This may have been drought-related?

Mortality of rhinos during capture and translocation could be the lethal removals; there is also a higher mortality rate amongst translocated rhinos due to fighting, wich is sometimes also inluded in mortality due to relocation when fighting mortality occurs within the first three months after introduction (‘post-release fighting’).

I don't think that this is entire "guesswork", there is enough reference to current methods of surveys and stats, but one needs a scientific background in stats to question this, just saying I don't believe this is not a sound argument.

I know there are many critics of the strip transects and block counts, but ironically, in terms of elephant counts people claim that the numbers are calculated too low and when it comes to rhino people say the estimates are too high

The rhinos sold? Don't they go under "non-lethal" Management Removals?

Lisbeth wrote: ↑Thu Jun 06, 2019 10:02 am The rhinos sold? Don't they go under "non-lethal" Management Removals?

Yes, but there is no info re sales from which park they come from, not only from Kruger, I think.