Diceros Bicornis Longipes - West African Black Rhino (Extinct)

Once with a population of one million from four subspecies in Africa, the black rhinoceros was an animal found in abundance. Today, the population is found to be less than 2500 and only 3 of the 4 subspecies remains. The species that went extinct is the West African Black Rhinoceros, and here’s why.

Initially, the western black rhino could be found throughout Western and Central Africa in almost five countries. But in the early 1900s, widespread sports hunting quickly took a large chunk of the population. Soon, industrial agriculture cleared away the grazing lands of the rhino and farmers also considered the rhino to be threatening, continuing the killing.

But in the 1950s, the rhino suffered its most crippling event. Mao Zedong’s use of TMC (traditional Chinese medicine) as a tool for unifying China. Powdered rhino horn was one of such medicines, said to be able to cure anything from fevers to cancer.

When poachers decended upon African soil between 1960 and 1995, 98% of black rhinos were slaughtered because of the high demand for TMC or (to a much a lesser extent) for horns used as knife handles in the Middle East. All rhinos suffered because of poaching, but the western black rhino was impacted hardest due to decades of over hunting.

A World Wildlife Fund survey in 2001 found only 5 West African black rhinos, with the possibility of 3 others. This was the last time scientists had ever spotted a western black rhino. Another sighting was in 2006, but was unconfirmed. In 2011, the International Union for Conservation of Nature declared the western black rhino extinct. With no sightings in over a decade, there was little hope that the subspecies remained.

The story of the West African black rhino is a story of greed and despair. The bottom line is this: a species has gone extinct because of human actions. The West African black rhino was not given proper attention by the government nor the people, and we can only hope that a situation like this does not happen again. But the lesson learned from this story is one that should be kept in mind for years to come.

With the West African black rhino gone, attention is shifting to conserving the rest of the other rhino subspecies which are also in critically dangerous conditions (for example, the northern white rhino with a total of 7 left today). We can only hope that more people will come to realize what has happened to this animal and harness that tragedy to ensure that more species are protected before they too are gone.