As Sumatran rhinos face extinction, scientists come to their rescue

Indonesia’s Sumatran rhino is one of the most critically endangered species in the world, with less than 80 of them left in the wild. Back in the 1980s, scientists hatched a plan to save the Sumatran rhino with a captive breeding program. The program was a flop.

Now, a coalition of conservation organizations, including National Geographic, is hoping to learn from these mistakes and start a new initiative to breed the Sumatran rhino.

Freelance writer Jeremy Hance wrote a series about the plan for the online magazine Mongabay.

“I first met my first Sumatran rhino in 2009,” he says. “I was in Sabah, in Borneo, and I went and met a rhino named Tam. I was told before I met Tam that he was very sweet and kind of like a giant cat, and I thought, ‘That's ridiculous.’ So, I get there — and he is. He’s rubbing up against the bars next to me. He's in this beautiful sanctuary in the rainforest. He's snorting at me, he's whistling at me. Spending time with this animal face-to-face, I just kind of fell in love and I've been following this story obsessively ever since.”

Sumatran rhinos are the oldest rhinos on Earth and they're “the weirdest,” Hance says. They are the smallest, they have a flank of reddish hair, they live in the rainforest and they love spending time in the mud.

The Sumatran rhino is also related to the extinct Wooly rhino and is the last rhino in their particular genus.

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