RHINOCEROS

Rhinoceroses are ancient beings who have walked the Earth for over 40 million years. They are strong yet sensitive, solitary yet deeply connected to their landscapes. Each individual has favourite wallowing spots, preferred grazing areas, and distinct personalities. Mothers are fiercely protective of their young, and calves stay close by their side for years, learning how to survive and thrive.

Rhinos are living, breathing individuals who deserve respect, safety, and freedom.

But what have we done?

We treat rhinoceroses as trophies, investments, resources, and obstacles. We slaughter them for their horns, carve up their homes for farmland, and imprison them for profit. We reduce these magnificent beings to commodities, driven by greed, vanity, and human supremacy.

The Many Ways Humans Harm Rhinoceroses

Poaching for Horns

Rhinos are targeted relentlessly for their horns, hacked off while alive or killed outright. Horns are falsely marketed as medicine or sold as luxury status symbols. Every poached rhino is a life violently stolen for human vanity.

Horn Farming

Some facilities breed rhinos solely to "harvest" their horns, selling them into legal or grey markets. Even when touted as "sustainable," it treats living beings as renewable resources, not individuals with rights.

Trophy Hunting

Legal trophy hunting markets rhinos as killable goods for the highest bidder. Select individuals are targeted, disrupting social structures and reinforcing the idea that their lives are only valuable dead.

Corruption and Weak Enforcement

Bribery and weak governance allow poaching and illegal horn trade to thrive. Without serious consequences, criminal networks operate openly, undermining any real hope of protection.

Noise and Human Disturbance

Tourists, vehicles, and constant human presence stress rhinos, disrupt breeding, and habituate them to danger, making them easier targets for poachers.

Infrastructure Expansion

New roads and railways cut through rhino territory, making it easier for poachers to access remote areas and fragmenting the landscapes rhinos need to roam freely.

Habitat Loss and Fragmentation

Farms, roads, and cities spread into rhino territory, shrinking their world into disconnected patches. Isolation makes it harder to find mates, weakens genetic diversity, and leaves them vulnerable to poachers and conflict.

Human-Wildlife Conflict

As humans push further into rhino habitats, clashes increase. Rhinos are shot for damaging crops or simply for being in the way. Their right to exist is erased by human expansion.

Climate Breakdown

Human-driven climate change dries up water sources, alters grazing lands, and makes survival harder. Rhinos, already pressured by poaching and habitat loss, face a changing world they didn’t create and cannot control.

Captivity and Exploitation

Zoos, safari parks, and "conservation" breeding centres imprison rhinos in tiny, barren enclosures. Deprived of space, choice, and natural behaviours, many suffer physically and mentally behind barriers built for human entertainment.

Rhinoceroses are not commodities. They are not trophies, ornaments, or attractions. They are individuals with their own lives, their own histories, and their own futures — if we allow them to have one.