Poachers Kill Javan Rhino In Vietnam - About 60 Left Worldwide, Maybe As Few As Six In Vietnam

Poachers have killed a Javan rhino in Vietnam for its horn according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). With only an estimated 60 individuals left the Javan rhino is the world's rarest and classified by the IUCN Red List as Critically Endangered. The rhino was found dead from a gunshot wound and its horn cut off in Cat Tien National Park in Vietnam.

"This is devastating news for rhino conservation and Vietnam," Dung Huynh Tien, National Policy Coordinator of WWF Vietnam, said in a news report. "The loss of this rhino is symbolic of the grim situation facing endangered species like the rhino and tiger across Vietnam."

Although the Javan rhinoceros once occurred across Southeast Asia (including Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Lao, Cambodia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and maybe even Southern China) and Indonesian islands like Sumatra and Java, today the rhino survives in only two places: Java and Vietnam. The larger population is in Java. Researchers don't know how many rhinos survive in Vietnam, but it may be as few as six.

The killed rhino also represents a unique subspecies (Rhinoceros sondaicus annamiticus) from the Javan population. Already one of the Javan rhino's subspecies, once present in India, went extinct in the early Twentieth Century. There are no Javan rhinos in captivity.

EDIT

http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0511-hance_javan_rhino.html

:banghead:

where the rhino killed a poacher for his hair, because human hair works as a rhino afro-teasiac . . . .

I am sick to death of stupid superstitionists cutting up endangered species to produce their bullshit treatments and cures. Some people need to be beat upside the head with a biology text book.