(Jakarta) In 2023, the birth of a Javan rhino in Indonesia raised hopes for a highly endangered species. A year later, the risk of disappearance of the animal hunted for its horns is real, under threat from poachers.

Since the start of the year, no less than six suspected poachers have been arrested, but eight of them are still on the run.

They are suspected of having killed no less than 26 rhinos since 2018, coveted for their horns which are then sold in China where they are used in traditional medicine.  

A poacher who managed to escape police had, authorities say, recent data on rhinos living in Java’s Ujung Kulon National Park, the only place in the world where the species is still present in the state. wild, which raises fears of internal complicity.

A first group of poachers admitted that 22 animals had been killed and their horns sold while four other animals were slaughtered by a second group of hunters.

“It’s a huge number,” said Nina Fascione, director of the NGO International Rhino Foundation, saying she was “shocked and devastated”.

Javan rhinoceroses, whose skin with large folds resembles armor, once numbered in the thousands in Southeast Asia, but they have suffered greatly from poaching and the reduction of their living space due to human activities .

But if the hunting of rhinoceros for its horn is practiced in other regions, the Javan rhino has until now escaped this scourge.  

“Poaching of the Javan rhino is really a new concern,” said Timer Manurung, director of local environmental NGO Auriga Nusantara, which closely monitors the species.

Poaching of the animal had rarely been reported in recent decades on Java, Indonesia’s most populous island.

But last year, the NGO reported worrying signs that poachers were operating in Ujung Kulon National Park: snares had been discovered there and a dead rhino was discovered with a hole in its head.

Even more serious, “there are several indications of internal help”, having also allowed one of the wanted poachers to escape the police a few hours before an intervention at his home, which poacher had recent data on the location of rhinos, Manurung said

For Muhammad Ali Imron, head of the Forests and Wildlife program at the NGO WWF Indonesia, a “comprehensive assessment” of everyone involved in rhino conservation must be carried out to avoid any potential collusion with poachers.

Indonesian law enforcement officials have yet to confirm the existence of internal complicity, but Ms. Fascione points out that in other places, poachers have often acted with the help of employees who were supposed to protect the animals.

The first reports of suspected poaching began to emerge in April, but it was not until early June that police presented the suspects to the media.

In early June, an Indonesian court sentenced a poacher to 12 years in prison for killing at least six rhinos.

At the same time, the national park has increased security with 24-hour patrols.

The question now is how many Javan rhinos remain in the park.

Even before the poaching was revealed, doubts had been raised about the official estimate of the number of animals in the wild.

Based on observation of tracks and camera traps, the population was between 76 individuals in 2021 and 80 in 2022, Satyawan Pudyatmoko, director general of Natural Resources and Ecosystem Conservation of ‘Indonesia.

Despite recent poaching, the current population may number 82 individuals, thanks to recent births.

Figures tempered by the NGO Auriga which indicated last year that the existence of only 63 individuals had been confirmed by observations in 2018.

For Mr. Manurung, an immediate, “transparent and credible” assessment of the species is now necessary.

The species has been under threat for decades. The rhinoceros disappeared from its last refuge outside Indonesia, in Vietnam, in 2010, due to poaching.

But conservationists are not yet giving up hope for the species in Indonesia, where the population has been saved after once being on the verge of extinction.

In March, an approximately three-month-old specimen was spotted on camera in Ujung Kulon, showing that the species is still breeding successfully.

“Java rhinos know what to do,” Fascione says. “They just need to be protected.”