Amazing New Footage And Photos Of A Javan Rhino-One Of The World’s Rarest Animals

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Ujung Kulon National Park, Indonesia Releases New Photos and Video of Critically Endangered Species Seldom Seen in the Wild

Javan Rhino

Quotes

  • “We heard a crashing sound, and suddenly this rhino just appeared to the right of us,” said Robin Moore, the team member from Global Wildlife Conservation who took the photos. “It was a surreal, once-in-a-lifetime moment, like time had stopped, and it was all we could do not to scare the animal away in our excitement. By sharing these photos, we hope to give people an emotional connection to this rare species—an animal that even rhino biologists only dream of getting a glimpse of in the wild.”
  • “WWF has worked for Javan Rhino conservation since 1962 when the population of rhinos was only 20 individuals left and the population increased to 68 individuals in 2018. This is clearly a good sign for population recovery,” said Lukas Adhyakso, conservation director of WWF-Indonesia.” Currently, the Javan rhino population is a single population and only occurs in Ujung Kulon National Park. We need to establish a second population to prevent them from the risk of major catastrophic events and disease outbreak.”
  • “This amazing footage of one of the world’s rarest animals is a reminder of how hard we must work to bend the curve on the decline of rare and iconic species like the Javan rhino. Last month, we released the Living Planet report showing a 60 percent decline in wildlife populations over the last generation, with poaching and habitat destruction among the greatest threats. However, collaborative conservation efforts have resulted in rising Javan rhino numbers, underscoring the need to work together for common conservation goals. Javan rhinos are still far from secure and require continued efforts by the Indonesian government and its partners,” said Margaret Kinnaird, leader of WWF’s Wildlife Practice.
  • Rahmat U Mamat, head of Ujung Kulon National Park said: “We give thanks to the community surrounding the park in helping us to protect Javan Rhino.” Rahmat added: “The Javan rhino is a pride of Indonesia, so we should protect it from extinction.”

Javan Rhino

Javan Rhino

Javan Rhino: B-roll Script

Watch the video here.

Bath time for most of us means getting clean, but for the rare Javan Rhino, bath time is all about the mud.

Conservationists visiting Ujung Kulon (ooh-jung Koo-lawn) National Park in Indonesia took what may be the first-ever photos and video of a Javan Rhino mud bathing.

The team from Global Wildlife Conservation and WWF-Indonesia had a rare run-in with one of only 68 Javan Rhinos still left on the planet.

All of the rhinos live in this national park on Java Island.

This makes them vulnerable to disease and natural disasters that could wipe out the entire population.

Javan Rhinos are one of the rarest animals on the planet.

Conservationists are preventing poaching and helping the population grow.

And they plan to eventually move some rhinos to a second location, with the hope that the species has a long future of mud baths ahead.

Javan Rhino

About the photos and video

  • A team from Global Wildlife Conservation and WWF-Indonesia, with permission from Indonesia’s Ujung Kulon National Park, captured the photos and video.
  • The images and video are among the first to show the Javan rhino—a species seen in the wild only a handful of times—wallowing in mud.
  • The team had the fortune of having a Javan rhino visit the wallow in the late afternoon, making it possible to take photos and video in the near-dusk light.

About the Javan rhino

  • The Javan rhino population is at just 68 individuals, all confined to Ujung Kulon National Park in West Java, Indonesia.
  • Javan rhinos are solitary and rare animals that live in thick forests, making them much more difficult to find in the wild than their African counterparts, the white and black rhinos, which live in open grasslands and savannas.
  • Javan rhinos once lived in parts of India, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia and Southern China. The last Vietnamese Javan rhino was found poached in 2010 during a joint WWF and national park study. The sub-species is now recognized as extinct in Vietnam. Hunters have targeted the species across its range for centuries as its horn is prized in traditional medicine, and its lowland habitat has been cleared for multiple purposes. With only one population left in a limited range, the species is especially susceptible to disease outbreak and natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions and tsunamis.

Javan rhino conservation

  • Over the last five years, the population of Javan rhinos has been relatively stable. Many conservation efforts have been invested in Ujung Kulon National Park in partnership with Park Officials, YABI (the Indonesian Rhino Foundation) and WWF-Indonesia. Some of the efforts include the establishment of Rhino Protection Units to patrol the park to prevent poaching, and intensive population monitoring with 120 installed camera traps installed to closely monitor the population.
  • Future conservation includes further enhancing the strict protection of the remaining rhinos and their habitat, translocating individual rhinos to a new location to establish a second population elsewhere in Indonesia, and controlling the invasive Arenga palm, which shades out the forest floor and inhibits the growth of plants that the rhinos eat.

Global Wildlife Conservation

GWC conserves the diversity of life on Earth by safeguarding wildlands, protecting wildlife and supporting guardians. We maximize our impact through scientific research, biodiversity exploration, habitat conservation, protected area management, wildlife crime prevention, endangered species recovery, and conservation leadership cultivation. Learn more at http://globalwildlife.org

WWF-Indonesia

WWF-Indonesia is a non-profit organization founded on 1961. WWF is working on 31 regional offices in 17 provinces throughout Indonesia, collaborating and partnering with society, NGO, media, business, banking, universities, as well as central and local governments. WWF mission is to conserve, restore and managing ecosystem and biodiversity in Indonesia in fair and sustainable. One of the activities is through advocacy and influencing policy, law and relevant institutions to support better environment governance. For more information, visit our website www.wwf.or.id

Ujung Kulon National Park

Ujung Kulon National Park area is declared as a protected area based on Law No.5/1990 on Natural Resource Conservation and Ecosystem, and Law No.41/1999 of Forestry. Ujung Kulon National Park has 122,956 hectares management area, consisting of 78,619 hectares of terrestrial and 44,337 hectares of marine. The National Park of Ujung Kulon is managed by the Technical Implementation Unit (UPT) of the Directorate General of Nature Conservation and Ecosystem (KSDAE), Ministry of Forestry and Environment Republic of

Contact

Lindsay Renick Mayer

Global Wildlife Conservation

[email protected]

202-422-4671

Lianne Mason

WWF International

[email protected]

+61591002437

Diah R. Sulistiowati

WWF-Indonesia

[email protected]

+628111004397

Mochamad Syamsudin

Head of Public Relations, Ujung Kulon National Park

[email protected]

+6285692559950

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