A couple of things come to mind from this state of affairs. The first is that some provincial governments did not do their jobs. The second is that there are concerns about past overestimates. After two consecutive years of growing numbers, the population of white rhinos in Africa declined significantly in 2024 in the face of poaching and other factors such as drought and past overcounts, according to a report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Commissioned by the Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in advance of its next Conference of the Parties (COP) late this year, the report is a sobering reminder that rhinos still face many threats – and that population estimates are just that. According to the report, while the black rhino population in Africa rose more than 5% in 2024 to 6,788, white rhino numbers fell 11.2% to 15,752 – a major reversal. In 2022, white rhino numbers in Africa increased for the first time since 2012, a trend that remained in place in 2023.