This week the Sunday Times (January 6, 2007) had an article on the birth of a new black rhino calf at one of the private reserves in Limpopo. The birth of this calf certainly is worth reporting on, but how long are we going to continue the skewed perceptions. Black rhino's are hardly "the most endangered large African mammal" as the article states.
A recent study investigating the persistence of large mammals (Morrison et al. 2007) describes a large mammal as >20kg. Off the top of my head, I can think of a couple of African mammals weighing more than 20kg that are far more threatened than the black rhino - giant sable antelope (Angola), addax (Niger and other N African countries), scimitar-horned oryx (reintroduced population in Tunisia), etc.
Come on guys, please do your homework before the papers go to press!
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