Meet the Five.

Every rhino alive today is one of five species. This is the whole list.

Guardians of our planet.

Rhinos, with their prehistoric presence and iconic horns, are a symbol of resilience and of the wild beauty of our planet. All five species are in trouble, and three of them are listed as Critically Endangered.

Keeping all five species alive is the Foundation’s whole job. Rhinos are ecosystem engineers: their grazing and browsing shape the grasslands and forests that hundreds of other species depend on. Protect a rhino, and you protect everything that shares its ground.

A white rhino facing the camera, its broad square lip and long front horn in view

White Rhino

Ceratotherium simum

IUCN status
Near Threatened
Wild population
15,752 Southern subspecies, declining
Range
South Africa, Kenya, Namibia, Zimbabwe
Distinctives
Largest of the fiveA grazer, with a broad square lip
Threats
PoachingPressure returned in the 2010s and the southern count is falling again
Rhinory
Blake is a Southern White Meet Blake

The white rhino is the largest of the five species. It is a grazer, with a broad, square lip, and it lives where the grass grows: the savannas of Africa.

Its range today runs through South Africa, Kenya, Namibia and Zimbabwe. The species has two subspecies, southern and northern, and almost every white rhino alive belongs to the southern one.

The two subspecies have gone very different ways. The southern white rhino had a real resurgence, but the latest estimate shows its numbers declining. The northern white rhino has no viable wild population left. Its last two animals are both females, Najin and Fatu.

Najin and Fatu live at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, one of Rhinory Foundation’s partners. In South Africa, the Foundation’s partner is Care for Wild, the world’s largest rhino orphan sanctuary.

A white rhino you can visit.

Blake is a Southern White Rhino, the subspecies above. He weighs about 4,100 pounds and has lived at Rhinory, in Texas Hill Country, since he came from Fossil Rim in 2019. Three Rhino Keepers look after him.

Meet Blake
Blake, Rhinory’s Southern White Rhino, drinking at his water trough in Texas Hill Country
A black rhino in profile, showing its hooked lip and two horns

Black Rhino

Diceros bicornis

IUCN status
Critically Endangered
Wild population
6,788 Recovering
Range
Eastern and Southern Africa
Distinctives
A browser, with a hooked lipTwo horns; keeps to dense thickets
Threats
Poaching and habitat lossFewer than 400 remained in Kenya in the 1980s
Rhinory
Liora, an Eastern Black calf Liora at Ol Pejeta

The black rhino is a browser. Where the white rhino grazes, the black rhino feeds from shrubs and bushes with a hooked lip, and it keeps to dense thickets. It carries two horns.

Its range covers Eastern and Southern Africa. Set beside the white rhino, the lip is the plainest difference between the two African species: square for grazing, hooked for browsing.

It is listed as Critically Endangered. Poaching and the loss of habitat are the main threats, and its survival depends on answering both. The latest estimate shows the species recovering.

Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, a Rhinory Foundation partner, holds East Africa’s largest black rhino population. On 29 January 2025 an Eastern Black calf was born there, and Rhinory’s club members named her Liora. In South Africa, within the black rhino’s southern range, the Foundation supports Care for Wild, the world’s largest rhino orphan sanctuary.

A greater one-horned rhino standing in water, its single horn and folded skin in view

Greater One-Horned Rhino

Rhinoceros unicornis

IUCN status
Vulnerable
Wild population
4,075 Recovering
Range
India and Nepal
Distinctives
Largest Asian rhinoSingle horn; thick skin folded like armor
Threats
Poaching and habitat lossPlus conflict where people and rhinos share ground
Outlook
Recovering With sustained conservation work

The greater one-horned rhino is also known as the Indian rhino. It is the largest of the Asian rhinos, with a single horn and thick skin folded into what look like plates of armor.

It lives in the grasslands and forests of India and Nepal. Of the three rhino species in Asia, it is by far the most numerous. Its scientific name, Rhinoceros unicornis, places it in the same genus as the Javan rhino, the other single-horned species.

It is listed as Vulnerable. Poaching and habitat loss are the threats it faces, and the latest estimate shows it recovering. Its future depends on continued conservation work.

Javan Rhino

Rhinoceros sondaicus

IUCN status
Critically Endangered
Wild population
About 50
Range
Ujung Kulon National Park, Java, Indonesia
Distinctives
Single hornSmaller than the greater one-horned rhino
Threats
One landscape onlyDisease risk and poaching pressure
Rhinory
International Rhino Foundation Our partners in Indonesia

The Javan rhino is one of the rarest large mammals on Earth. Like the greater one-horned rhino, it has a single horn, but it is the smaller of the two.

The whole species lives in one landscape: Ujung Kulon National Park, on the island of Java in Indonesia. There is no other wild population.

It is listed as Critically Endangered. With every animal in a single park, the species has no second population to fall back on, and its small size and single horn leave it particularly vulnerable.

For the Javan rhino, Rhinory Foundation’s partner is the International Rhino Foundation, which works for both of Indonesia’s rhino species, the Javan and the Sumatran. Its programs include Rhino Protection Units and reforestation.

Sumatran Rhino

Dicerorhinus sumatrensis

IUCN status
Critically Endangered
Wild population
34 to 47
Range
Way Kambas, Bukit Barisan Selatan and Leuser, Indonesia
Distinctives
Smallest and hairiestTwo horns and a reddish-brown coat
Threats
Habitat loss and poachingSmall, isolated populations that breed with difficulty
Rhinory
Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary, Way Kambas What the Foundation funds there

The Sumatran rhino is the smallest of the five species, and the hairiest. It has two horns and a reddish-brown coat, and it is a solitary animal.

It lives in the dense forests of Indonesia, and historically in Malaysia as well. The wild population is now found in three places: Way Kambas, Bukit Barisan Selatan and the Leuser Ecosystem.

It is listed as Critically Endangered. Habitat loss and poaching are the reasons.

Here too, Rhinory Foundation’s partner is the International Rhino Foundation. Its work for this species includes the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary at Way Kambas and Wildlife Protection Teams in the Leuser Ecosystem, alongside its Rhino Protection Units and reforestation.

Anchored by thirty-two years of rhino keeping.

Christine Bobko, Director of Rhino Programs

Years at Denver Zoo
32
Species worked with or studied
5 of 5
President, founding board member
IRKA

Christine Bobko is Rhinory’s Director of Rhino Programs. Her career began at the San Antonio Zoo and ran 32 years at Denver Zoo, where she worked with black rhinos and greater one-horned rhinos in a collection that ran from koalas to Asian elephants. Rhinos were always her passion.

She has traveled to Africa and to Indonesia to work with Sumatran and Javan rhinos directly. When she retired from Denver Zoo in 2022, she came to Rhinory to grow its breeding, conservation and guest programs. Her retirement, in her own words, “would now be wine and rhinos.”

Christine is a founding board member and the current President of the International Rhino Keeper Association, where she chairs fundraising and developed two biannual keeper workshops.

Why these populations are where they are.

Four overlapping pressures, and four overlapping responses. The initiatives Rhinory Foundation funds answer them directly.

Poaching for horn

Driven by demand for rhino horn in some markets. The response is ranger programs, anti-poaching technology and intelligence-led operations.

Habitat loss and fragmentation

Agriculture, infrastructure and land conversion shrink the range. The response is to secure and expand habitat and to restore degraded ecosystems.

Human-wildlife conflict

Communities that share a landscape with rhinos bear the cost of conservation. The response is community engagement, sustainable livelihoods and education.

Small, isolated populations

Low genetic diversity, disease risk and difficult breeding. The response is research, monitoring and semi-wild breeding programs.

The Global Rhino Population.

Three things, told straight from the published record: where the five species stand today, how each has moved since 2016, and the long arc that shows conservation has worked before.

Latest published wild estimates. African species as of 31 December 2024, the greater one-horned as of March 2025. Not a 2026 census, and zoo populations are not counted.

  • Ceratotherium simumWhite Rhino 15,752Near ThreatenedDeclining
  • Diceros bicornisBlack Rhino 6,788Critically EndangeredRecovering
  • Rhinoceros unicornisGreater One-Horned 4,075VulnerableRecovering
  • Rhinoceros sondaicusJavan Rhino About 50Critically EndangeredCritically low
  • Dicerorhinus sumatrensisSumatran Rhino 34 to 47Critically EndangeredCritically low

About 26,700

rhinos left in the wild, across all five species.

Includes the two remaining northern white females, Najin and Fatu, at Ol Pejeta in Kenya. The northern white subspecies has no viable wild breeding population.

How each species has actually moved.

Official census points are solid; interim estimates are hollow and dashed. We connect the points we have and leave the gaps honest. No annual line is implied where no count exists, and each species is drawn on its own scale.

Official censusInterim estimate

White Rhino

Near Threatened, declining

After climbing back from fewer than 100 animals a century ago, the southern white fell 11.2% in a single year, from 17,464 in 2023 to 15,752 in 2024, a two-decade low driven by renewed poaching in South Africa. The work now is to hold ground that took a century to win.

Figures are the southern white subspecies. The 2022 and 2023 interim estimates were not full censuses.

2015
20,378
2017
18,067
2021
15,942
2022
About 16,803 (interim)
2023
17,464 (interim)
2024
15,752

Black Rhino

Critically Endangered, recovering

Black rhino numbers are up roughly 29% since 2015. Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya holds East Africa’s largest black rhino population, and it is where Liora, the Eastern Black calf Rhinory’s club members named, was born.

Interim estimates for 2022 and 2023 sit between official censuses. The official trend is clearly upward.

2015
5,250
2017
5,495
2021
6,195
2022
6,487 (interim)
2023
6,421 (interim)
2024
6,788

Greater One-Horned Rhino

Vulnerable, recovering

The greater one-horned rhino came back from fewer than 200 a century ago and crossed 4,000 in 2021. Sustained protection in India and Nepal has made it one of conservation’s clearest wins.

Counts are roughly biennial. The 2023 figure is interim; the 2025 census confirmed the climb past 4,000.

2016
3,557
2018
3,588
2021
4,014
2023
4,018 (interim)
2025
4,075

Javan Rhino

Critically Endangered, critically low

The 2021 count of 76 was not a true peak. As many as 26 Javan rhinos were killed by a poaching ring between 2019 and 2023, uncovered only in 2023, and the estimate was then revised to about 50. Every one of them lives in a single Indonesian park.

The 2021 figure of 76 was not a true peak. Once the poaching ring was confirmed in 2023, the count was revised to about 50.

2016
63
2018
65 to 68
2021
76*
2024
About 50 (revised)

Sumatran Rhino

Critically Endangered, critically low

Earlier figures of fewer than 80 proved too high. Combined with a slow real decline, the count now sits at 34 to 47. Rhinory Foundation funds the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary at Way Kambas.

The 2021 drop to 34 to 47 reflects an estimate correction, since earlier figures of fewer than 80 were overestimates, alongside a slow real decline. It was not a single-year crash. The 2024 range is carried forward.

2016
76
2018
40 to 78
2021
34 to 47*
2024
34 to 47 (carried forward)

Rhinos poached in South Africa each year

2025: 352, an eleven-year low

South Africa holds most of the world’s white and black rhinos, so its poaching trend drives the African numbers above. Annual losses have fallen from more than a thousand in 2016 to 352 in 2025, the lowest in eleven years, and the work is far from over.

Recovery is possible. It is also reversible.

Conservation has brought rhinos back from the very brink before. That is exactly why the work cannot stop: the species that recovered can fall again, and two of the five are already near zero.

White Rhino

Saved once, slipping now

Back from fewer than 100 in 1895 to a peak above 21,000 in 2012, and down to 15,752 now.

  1. 1895Fewer than 100Hunted to near-extinction across southern Africa.
  2. 2012About 21,300The peak of the southern white recovery, one of the great comebacks.
  3. 2010sCrisisA poaching surge begins the decline still underway today.
  4. 202415,752The latest southern white estimate. Blake, at Rhinory, is this subspecies.

Black Rhino

Recovering

From a low of 2,410 in 1995 to 6,788 today.

  1. 1960About 100,000Black rhinos range widely across Africa.
  2. 1970About 65,000Poaching for horn accelerates sharply.
  3. 19952,410The all-time low. The species was very nearly lost.
  4. 20246,788Recovering, up about 29% since 2015.

Greater One-Horned Rhino

Recovering

From fewer than 200 a century ago to 4,075 today.

  1. Early 1900sFewer than 200Reduced to a handful in India and Nepal.
  2. 20214,014Crosses 4,000 for the first time in modern records.
  3. 20254,075Still climbing. A clear conservation success.

Javan Rhino

Fragile

Up from fewer than 30 in 1967, but back to about 50 today after recent poaching. One park only: Ujung Kulon, Indonesia.

  1. 1967Fewer than 30Reduced to a single relict population.
  2. 198050 to 60Stabilizing under protection in Ujung Kulon.
  3. TodayAbout 50Confined to one park in Indonesia. Every animal counts.

Sumatran Rhino

Critical

As many as 800 may have survived in the wild in the 1980s. Today, 34 to 47 remain.

  1. 1986About 800Believed to survive across Southeast Asia.
  2. 2007280 to 320A steep decline through habitat loss and isolation.
  3. 2015Gone in MalaysiaDeclared extinct in the wild there; Indonesia only since.
  4. Today34 to 47Semi-wild breeding at Way Kambas is the lifeline Rhinory Foundation supports.

Every comeback on this timeline was paid for, year after year. The species still falling are the ones that need that work next.

Population data: IUCN SSC African and Asian Rhino Specialist Groups and TRAFFIC, via the International Rhino Foundation’s State of the Rhino reports, 2016 to 2025.

What you can do.

Come to Rhinory and see a white rhino for yourself, or join the Conservation Circle.

Plan a visit Join the Conservation Circle
Support Rhinory Foundation

Population figures are wild estimates from the IUCN and the International Rhino Foundation, as of March 2025.