According to the World Wildlife Fund the last wild Javan rhino in Vietnam was killed by illegal poaching. They believe that the species is extinct in Vietnam, but there is a small population of them(about 50) living at the Ujung Kulon National Park in Java, Indonesia. This is definitely a tragic event for Vietnam and wild Asian rhinoceros species. Now there is one less species of wild animals inhabiting the Asian rain forests.The WWF’s Asian species expert, Dr. Barney Long said that this was “another warning sign of Vietnam’s looming wave of species extinctions”.
Many people poach these rhinos for sport, but some of them hunt them because they believe that the horns can be used as a medicine. Some parts of Asia think that if the horns are ground up and poured into boiling water it can cure serious diseases like typhoid fever (a serious Asian disease), and even cancer. There is no medical proof of this.
The WWF sais that now it is impossible to bring the species back into the wild because the only rhinos of this species have adapted to the area that they are in now, and not Vietnam’s climate and landscapes.
The extinction of these rhinos in Vietnam is tragic, but the WWF is trying to protect the remaining population of Javan Rhinos in Indonesia to make sure that the species does not completely die out. There is hope for these rhinos, but they will no longer inhabit the Vietnamese jungles.
IMAK
Krueger
KSAT
NEISD
