The last few remaining western black rhino (Diceros bicornis longipes) in Caneroon are so isolated and scattered that they in all probability are doomed to extinction if left where they are. Time is running out for this subspecies, and the AfRSG has been promoting initiatives to examine and cost the various options for the consolidation and protection of the last remaining animals. Diplomatic efforts to seek high level commitment from the Cameroon authorities are being encouraged. and once this has been obtained, the AfRSG has recommended to IUCN France that as a matter of urgency, a meeting of all stakeholders be held to decide on and draw up a plan of conservation action with an implementation schedule, and that significant international funding will need to be secured for such a programme.
AfRSG report. Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo is home to the last remaining confirmed population of northern white rhino (Ceratotherium simum cottoni). The AfRSG's, Dr Kes Hillman Smith has recently reported that field patrols are continuing, and that levels of poaching in the Park have declined to approximately a third of levels in the last quarter of 1998 and first quarter of 1999. The guards are also reporting seeing rhino frequently which is encouraging because foot patrols are the least efficient way to find white rhino in the Park. While this new s is encouraging, with only 25 or fewer animals remaining, the situation is still critical.
AROA private sector white rhino conservation workshop. In the last Pachyderm I mentioned that a draft South African white rhino conservation and sustainable use strategy had been produced. In 1997, the private sector in South Africa owned and conserved just over 20% of the continent's southern white rhino. From 1987-97 South African white rhino (in all populations) increased by an average of 6.7% per year, and if this metapopulation growth rate can be maintained, then the country could have over 15,000 white rhino by 2007. However, for this to be achieved, it is likely that the private sector and communities will need to conserve an increasing proportion of these rhinos. For this to occur, it is clear that incentives to con- serve white rhinos will need to be maintained. Despite the success of private sector white rhino conservation, a number of concerns have been expressed internationally. Monitoring of rhino movements between private properties and the registration and control of private sector horn stocks are two areas with room for significant improvement. Given these concerns, and the realisation that the private sector is likely to play an increasingly important role in conserving southern white rhino, a WWF supported African Rhino Owners Association (AROA) workshop was held at Onderstepoort in early October 1999. Provisional results of the latest WWF-funded Survey of the status of white rhino on private land were released at the workshop by Daan Buijs. He showed that numbers of privately owned southern white rhino in South Africa had continued to increase up to an estimated 1,922 (up from 1,742 in 1997). This figure is likely to be conservative, as uncorrected minimum aerial counts were used for some of the larger populations. After excluding the additional animals bought from the private sector, the survey showed numbers on private land increased by 7% per annum over the last two years. Three AfRSG members and a member of the Endangered Species Protection Unit of the South African Police Service also gave background presentations. Speakers emphasised the importance of putting conservation first and the need for the highest ethical standards to be adopted by the private sector. The draft conservation plan. its vision, key components and objectives were outlined. A number of strategic issues relevant to private sector white rhino conservation and to meeting the goals of the plan were then discussed. Some inadequacies were highlighted by the speakers and in particular the urgent need for improved registering of private horn stockpiles was emphasized. At the workshop, issues discussed included legislation and policy (including registration and `identichipping' of horn stocks), the future structure of AROA (including the need for greater representation of owners and the employment of a full time coordinator), and inititatives to boost security (development of reaction plans and setting up of an emergency fund) and improved monitoring (desirability of ID-based monitoring methods, and the introduction of a standardised status reporting system at least for the bigger populations)
Action plan. Two further iterations of reviwing and editing the new continental Action Plan for African rhinos have taken place since publication of the last Pachyderm. The plan is currently in its final stages of editing and is still on course to be published by the end of' 1999. Next AfRSG meeting Plans are inderway to hold the next AfRSG meeting in Tanzania in May 2000.
In the last edition of Pachyderm, I introduced readers to the major WWF-funded project, which the AfRSG is co-ordinating, to develop a forensic test to enable law enforcement staff to source confiscated rhino horn. I outlined progress made with obtaining samples throughout the continent, and discussed the analytical techniques to be used to determine the chemical composition of horn. The need for the development of horn fingerprinting was again highlighted by a member of the Endangered Species Protection Unit of the South African Police Service (ESPU) who indicated the Unit did not know the source of many of the horns it had recovered in illegal busts. I am pleased to report that initial pilot statistical analyses of the raw chemistry data by the AfRSG's Scientific Officer have been very promising. The AfRSG's decision to use Laser-Ablation-Inductively-Coupled-Plasma-Mass-Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) to quantify the chemical composition of horn (in this case the abundance of heavier isotopes) has been vindicated. Plot analyses show this technique is producing data which better discriminate between areas than any other analytical technique which has been used before. On a pilot sample of 67 black rhino horns, 92.5% of these samples were correctly sourced using only LA-ICP-MS data. The data produced excellent separation between most areas. The use of Inductively-Coupled-Plasma-Optical-Emission-Spectrometry (ICP-OES) to quantify trace elements was also supported by the pilot analyses. Although not as good as LA-ICP-MS, ICP-OES data still had significant discriminatory power, with the source of 76.1 % of the pilot sample being correctly predicted using only ICP-OES data. The analysis of horn samples for lighter carbon and nitrogen at the University of Cape Town also produced four variables with significant discriminatory power. The results of the pioneering work by Dr Julia Lee-Thorp and her colleagues were corroborated by the data which confirmed that a stable carbon isotope ratio provides a cast iron diagnostic tech- nique to discriminate between white and black rhino horn. The pilot discriminant function analyses also showed the carbon and nitrogen data had some discriminatory ability, correctly classifying the source of 50% of the pilot samples. Although the results show LA-ICP-MS is the best single technique, pilot analyses indicated the best results will be obtained by building a statistical model using data from all three methods. By combining LA-ICP-MS and ICP-OES data, 98.5% of the pilot sample was correctly sourced with the only misclassification occurring when a sample was allocated to an adjacent area within the same Park. By combining all three techniques together, the resultant model correctly classified all pilot black rhino horn samples used to build the models. While the real challenge will be the ability of the technique to correctly classify independent samples not used to build the statistical models, these preliminary results are still very encouraging and much better than were originally expected was possible.
