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Ministry claims IUCN underestimated Sumatran rhino population
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A female rhino named Rosa (left) looks at her new baby, born at the Way Kambas National Park in Lampung on March 24. (AFP/Handout)
T
he Environment and Forestry Ministry contends that there are more Sumatran rhinos in the wild than the less than 50 individuals the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) recently estimated.
According to a report by the IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC) African and Asian rhino specialist groups and wildlife trafficking watchdog TRAFFIC, some 34 to 47 Sumatran rhinos existed in the wild in 2021, down from 40 to 78 individuals estimated in 2018.
Environment and Forestry Ministry spokesperson Nunu Anugrah claimed that there were still an estimated 67 to 75 Sumatran rhinos, based on surveys and population viability analyses (PVAs) conducted by the ministry – the latest in 2018, three years before the IUCN study.
Nunu said Indonesia continued to seek to conserve the critically endangered Sumatran rhinos through an emergency action plan. The plan calls for Sumatran rhinos living in population pockets of less than 15 individuals to be relocated to a rhino sanctuary to facilitate their breeding. Population pockets of more than 15 individuals were to be protected and monitored in the wild.
Nunu also pointed out that the IUCN and TRAFFIC report acknowledged that their Sumatran rhino estimates were produced using the observations of fewer patrol officers than the studies conducted in Africa.
The spokesperson said the population estimate should have also taken into account the number of newly born calves in “semi-wild” areas, as three Sumatran rhino calves were born from 2012 to 2022.
“Indonesia will propose this correction to the report at the upcoming CITES conference,” Nunu said on Saturday.
