Despite a modest 16% decline in rhino killings countrywide during 2025, the number of these animals poached in Kruger National Park has doubled compared with the previous year. Significantly, the dramatic surge in rhino poaching in Kruger was mirrored by an equally significant drop in killing rates in the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park in KwaZulu-Natal, which has been a poaching hotspot for several years. Conservation officials have attributed the sharp poaching decline in the 96,000ha Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park to a mass dehorning operation, which began in April 2024 – leading to a displacement of poachers to the two-million-hectare Kruger National Park rhino stronghold. According to the latest official statistics from the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE), poachers killed 352 rhinos across South Africa during 2025 - a 16% decline compared with 2024, when 420 rhinos were poached for their horns. The highest poaching rates were recorded in Kruger, where 175 rhinos were killed – almost exactly double the number (88) killed in 2024.