How not to save the rhino

As conservation efforts fail, scientists and economists are coming up with increasingly loony and dangerous schemes to save the rhino

Last month it was confirmed that the Sumatran rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) is extinct in Malaysia. The future looks bleak for this species. The few dozen remaining individuals are confined to remote forests in Sumatra (Indonesia), in refuges that are under siege on an island devastated by rampant deforestation.

Rhinos are under threat worldwide. The estimated population of the Javan rhino (Rhinoceros sondaicus), just 60 individuals, is even lower than that of the Sumatran rhino. In 2011 the West African black rhino (Diceros bicornis longipes) was declared extinct. The global population of another African sub-species, the northern white rhino (Ceratotherium simum cottoni), now consists of four individuals, all in zoos, none of them in breeding condition.