AfRSG report. The Chairman attended a UNEP meeting at Gigiri, Kenya in October 1994 at which collaboration between UNEP's newly-created Elephant and Rhino Conservation Facility and IUCN's specialist groups for elephants and rhinos in Africa and Asia was discussed. A common mission was developed, the roles and responsibilities of the Facility and the Specialist Groups discussed, and a mechanism for sustained collaboration agreed upon. The most critical role of the Facility is seen by the Specialist Groups 10 be the acquisition of funds for both global and national rhino conservation projects.
AfRSG report. In the last few months the AFRSG produced a key issue report on the subject of the controversial media allegations that numbers of rhino had crashed in Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Park and 800 had been `lost'. The report concluded that the population had not crashed and that the population was likely to be nearer to the official Natal Parks Board's estimate of 1,800 rather than the 1,214 counted during a helicopter count. The report pointed out the problems inherent in unreplicated helicopter counts, emphasising that many animals are missed from the air. Raw helicopter count totals need to be adjusted to account for under-count biases to produce estimates of the actual population size, but the use of such correction factors is fraught with problems. The review supported the Natal Parks Board's use of Line Transect Distance Estimation as the method best able to estimate population size.
