犀牛的平均体重比人类高500公斤。

你可能会认为强大的犀牛比人类更有生存优势。但事实并非如此。自20世纪初以来，全球的犀牛数量下降了近95％。人类是对犀牛最大的威胁。

9月22日是世界犀牛日（World Rhino Day）。非政府组织、动物园、企业和有关人士纷纷呼吁保护非洲和亚洲的五个不同的犀牛物种。

威胁

非法偷猎是对犀牛的一个很大的威胁。他们出售犀牛的身体部位制作所谓神奇的药物，甚至作为猎人的“战利品”。据野生动物观察家称，跨国犯罪团伙——甚至反叛武装人员——都在滥杀犀牛，其程度已达到了“工业化规模”。

2014年，仅在南非一地，偷猎者就猎杀了1,200多头犀牛。在许多原撒哈拉以南地区的国家，黑犀牛已经灭绝。而在1970年，黑犀牛仍是当地常见的野生动物。

对策

地球保护主义者在应对威胁方面已经开始有了一些进展。在南非，他们已经使野生白犀牛数量从曾经不到100头上升到约20,000头。

美国鱼类和野生动植物管理局（USFWS- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service）帮助非洲人民恢复当地的犀牛数量，地点包括肯尼亚（Kenya）的契乌鲁山国家公园（Kenya’s Chyulu Hills National Park）和赞比亚（Zambia）的北卢安瓜国家公园（North Luangwa National Park）。

美国采取捣毁行动（Operation Crash）等措施，以走私、共谋、洗钱和贿赂等罪行对犀牛角贩子提出刑事起诉。

更多关于世界犀牛日的信息见相关网站。

Rhinos on the brink 
 

The earliest rhino roamed the Earth about 9 million years before the first humanlike mammals appeared.

The average rhino outweighs the average man by more than 500 kilos.

You’d think the mighty rhinoceros would have the edge in this matchup. Not so. The global rhino population has declined nearly 95 percent since the early 20th century. Humans are by far the greatest threat.

On September 22, World Rhino Day, nongovernmental organizations, zoos, businesses and concerned individuals focus on protecting the five different rhinoceros species of Africa and Asia.

The threats

Illegal poachers are a big threat. They sell rhino body parts for bogus medicines or even hunter “trophies.” Transnational criminal gangs — even rebel militias — do the killing, which is reaching an “industrial scale,” according to wildlife watchers.

In South Africa alone, poachers slew over 1,200 rhinos in 2014. Black rhinos are extinct in many of the original sub-Saharan nations where they were native as recently as 1970.

The responses

Global conservationists have begun to make some progress in countering these threats. In South Africa, they have restored the white rhino population, once fewer than 100, to some 20,000 in the wild.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) helps Africans rebuild their rhino populations, including those in Kenya’s Chyulu Hills National Park and Zambia’s North Luangwa National Park.

U.S. initiatives like Operation Crash bring criminal charges — smuggling, conspiracy, money laundering and bribery — against rhino horn traffickers.

Learn more about World Rhino Day.