NAIROBI (AFP) — Kenya wildlife authorities on Wednesday launched an ambitious programme to boost the country's small population of endangered black rhino, which was nearly wiped out by poachers.
The Kenya Wildlife Service's (KWS) programme aims to increase the numbers of black rhino from the current 540 to 700 over the next five years. There are only 3,725 black rhinos in the world in zoos and in the wild.
"Our target is to ensure that we have 2,000 (black) rhinos in the next 25 years, but this strategy is only for five years and our target is 700 black rhinos," KWS chief Julius Kipngetich told reporters.
Widespread poaching in the country slashed the black rhino population from about 20,000 in 1970 to to under 350 by 1990, but authorities have since increased surveillance to protect the rare animal.
"The poaching threat has largely been managed but it has not gone, " Kipngetich said, adding that surveillance was "at its highest ever."
The population has "made some recovery. In percentage terms it is dramatic recovery, but it absolute term it is not much," Kipngetich explained.
Referring to black rhinos, he said diseases were a threat that could "wipe them out," underlining that the population would be too small to withstand a major outbreak of disease.
Kenya has the third-largest rhino population in Africa behind South Africa and Namibia.
All Kenya's black rhinos have been kept in sanctuaries since 1985, but the agency will start releasing them to open spaces in February to reproduce naturally.
The agency will encourage communities living near national parks and game reserves to take up rhino conservation as part of their land use.
"This has worked successfully and we think that it is a new frontier and a new window of opportunity in growing our rhino numbers," the KWS chief explained.
Kenya also holds some 280 southern white rhino that contribute to conservation efforts for the rare species. These serve as a reservoir of white rhino for northern Africa given the likely extinction of the northern subspecies.
The KWS is currently operating on an overall budget of 4.04 billion shillings (60.4 million dollars) for all conservation activities, but is seeking seven billion shillings (104.6 million dollars) by 2010.
Trade in rhino horns is banned but they fetch high prices on Asian black markets due to their believed medicinal and aphrodisiac properties, as well as in the Middle East where they are used as decorative dagger handles by wealthy Arab elites.
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