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| Location: |
Asia - East Asia - Vietnam |
| Subject: |
Distribution - Records |
| Species: |
Asian Rhino Species |
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It is a shy animal that often retreats to dense forests to avoid disturbance and escape poachers. While this characteristic is of survival value and therefore to be welcomed by conservationists, it also makes it an extremely difficult species to study. Much of the information about the number, range and food habits of the rhinos is derived indirectly from footprints, trails, wallows and dung. What is known of its biology is mainly gleaned from incidental observations by tribal people and poachers. The most serious threat facing the Javan rhino population of Vietnam is poaching. An unpleasant legacy of the prolonged war with the USA is the ready availability of guns and rifles. Many minority tribal people carry guns to hunt wildlife for meat. Given the high price rhino horn fetches in the international market, the Javan rhino in Vietnam is worth more dead than alive to those Chinese middlemen in Ho Chi Minh City who trade in rhino horn.
Logging in itself is not a serious direct threat to Javan rhinos although their territory is rich in commercially important timber species of the Dipterocarpaceae family. The Vietnamese system of timber extraction stipulates the removal of only those trees that are over 80 cm in diameter at breast height, and a cutting cycle of 35-40 years. Logged areas actually offer some of the best habitats for rhinos and other large herbivores. The threat to rhinos from logging is indirect, and is attributable to logging roads providing people and poachers with easy access to hitherto inaccessible places.
Another threat comes from the slash and burn agriculture practised by almost all the tribal people resident in the area. The fires set by the farmers could easily spread into the core area of the rhinos, especially during the dry season when there is so much combustible plant material around. Shifting cultivation is identified as a prime agent of forest destruction.
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Javan rhinoceros in Vietnam
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