3000 Diceros bicornis
Map
lt seems to have been Blancou (1952) who originated the story of the possible survival of the white rhino in the Central African Republic. He thought that the last survivors in Tchad and the north of the Central African Republic had been shot about 1935, but that there was a fair chance a few might survive in the east, along the Sudanese frontier from near the sources of the Kotto River southwards.
Gromier (1941) wrote that he saw horns of the white variety from Birao in 1931, and that a few years before 1941 he had seen several from the Vakaga region.
Lavauden also supposed that the rhino to the northeast and east of Yalinga was the white, and in 1934 he noted a white rhino killed northwest of Zemio
Lavauden also supposed that the rhino to the northeast and east of Yalinga was the white, and in 1934 he noted a white rhino killed northwest of Zemio.
Malbrant (1952) records seeing horns of white rhino in the hands of merchants at Birao in l933, and three years earlier apparently saw one on the Aouk to the north of Birao (Malbrant, 1930). Gromier (1941) wrote that he saw horns of the white variety f rom Birao in 1931.
However, in 1927 the British Sudan border post at Dj?n?n? seized a larger number of white rhino horns alleged to have come from Tchad, which were probably the 150 which Guy Babault saw in Khartoum and which were reported as originating from Abecher (Lavauden, 1934).
Shortly before his death in 1979, M. Etienne Cannone (a French hunter who went out to Tchad at the age of eighteen and is credited with killing over a hundred black rhino on the Aouk River) informed M. Lefol that he had also shot about a dozen white rhino in this region, or the Doseo, Mya and Keita tributaries, probably about 1936/7 (Lefol pers comm. 1985). This report extends the range of the white rhino 135 km further west than that indicated by Lavauden.
the last stronghold was, until 1981, the Central African Republic. Before this date, it seems to have been distributed thinly throughout the area of the Republic east of about 19'E, between latitudes 07'W to about 10'N, in the east extending south to 06'N (Figure 3).
The former hunting inspector Andr? F?lix is alleged to have shot a white rhino between 1920-36 near Badia, which is on the Sudanese border to the east of the park which bears his name. The reason why the rhino shot by Cannone and Andr? F?lix are not on record is presumably because the animal was theoretically protected by law.
In 1927, the French Commission Sup?rieur de la Chasse was informed that the white rhino no longer existed in French territories (but then, somewhat illogically, it was given absolute protection by a law dated 25 August 1929)
further, a museum horn of Ceratotherium simum comes from east of Mangueigne in Tchad.
