Illustration of a black rhino -

NEWMAN MARK / SIPA

This drop in poaching is partly due to movement restrictions to stem the Covid-19.

In South Africa, the number of rhinos killed in 2020 fell by 33%.

At least 394 of these animals were slaughtered against 594 in 2019, Environment Minister Barbara Creecy said in a statement on Monday.

Most of the rhinos - 245 - were killed in Kruger National Park, a tourist park on the border with Mozambique.

“During the harshest period of containment against Covid-19, we have seen a significant reduction in incursions by poachers into the Kruger,” said Barbara Creecy.

Resumption of poaching at the end of the year

But those gains were immediately reduced as soon as the movement restrictions were lifted.

"That changed later in the year, when containment levels eased and a significant resumption of poaching was recorded towards the end of 2020, especially in December," said the minister.

South Africa, home to nearly 80% of the planet's rhino population, has seen the number of specimens killed decline steadily for the sixth year in a row.

But poachers, responding to the strong demand for rhino horns from Asia, where they are used in traditional medicine or for their alleged aphrodisiac virtue, continue their raids and attacks.

A drop of "nearly 70%" in the population

For Minister Creecy, this drop in poaching acts in 2020 is a “small victory”.

But anti-poaching campaigns must not be slackened because the demand for horns is always higher.

And for environmentalists and the opposition, these latest figures ignore the general decline in the rhino population.

"For a number of years, we wondered about the exact size of the population of white and black rhinos ... In the end, if there are fewer rhinos, they become much more difficult for poachers to find." , said Julian Rademeyer, director for East and South Africa of the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime.

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said for its part to have observed a decrease of "nearly 70%" of the rhino population in the Kruger National Park during the last decade, as a result of drought and poaching.

According to a recent report from the government agency for national parks, there are only 3,549 white rhinos and 268 black rhinos left in the Kruger.

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  • Coronavirus

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  • South Africa

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  • Rhinoceros