Every rhino alive today is one of five species.
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.
Rhinos are ecosystem engineers: their grazing and browsing shape the grasslands and forests that other wildlife depends on.
About26,700
rhinos left in the wild, across all five species.
Wild populations only, from the latest published estimates: African species as of , the greater one-horned as of . The total includes Najin and Fatu at Ol Pejeta Conservancy. Sources: IUCN SSC African and Asian Rhino Specialist Groups and TRAFFIC, via the International Rhino Foundation’s State of the Rhino reports, 2016 to 2025. Figures last checked .
Ceratotherium simum
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.
Almost every white rhino alive belongs to the southern subspecies. The Southern White made a real comeback, but pressure returned in the 2010s and the latest estimate shows its numbers declining again. The Northern White has no viable wild population left. Its last two animals are both females.
Rhinory Foundation’s partner in South Africa, and the world’s largest orphan rhino sanctuary. Rhinory sponsors Hercules there, a Southern White calf rescued after a hyena attack in October 2024. Read more about Care for Wild
A Rhinory Foundation partner, and home to Najin and Fatu, the last two Northern White rhinos. Read more about Ol Pejeta Conservancy
Since 2015 the Southern White has fallen from 20,378 to under 16,000. Interim counts showed a climb back to 17,464, then renewed poaching in South Africa cut the population by 11.2% in a single year. The 2024 count of 15,752 is a two-decade low. A century ago there were fewer than 100. The work now is to hold ground that took a century to win.
Southern White subspecies only.
Official countInterim estimate
Blake is a Southern White Rhino, the subspecies above. He came to Rhinory from Fossil Rim in March 2022 and lives here in Texas Hill Country, where our rhino team looks after him. He grazes a few steps from where you taste the wine.
Diceros bicornis
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.
Poaching and habitat loss pushed it close to the edge, and fewer than 400 remained in Kenya in the 1980s. The latest estimate shows the species recovering.
Holds East Africa’s largest black rhino population. Liora, an Eastern Black calf, was born there to Lola on January 29, 2025. Conservation Circle members named her, and Rhinory sponsors her. Read more about Ol Pejeta Conservancy
Black rhino numbers are up roughly 29% since 2015. The interim estimates for 2022 and 2023 sit between official counts, and the official trend is clearly upward.
Rhinoceros unicornis
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 grasslands and forests, and 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.
Habitat loss, poaching and conflict where people and rhinos share ground still threaten it. With sustained protection, the latest estimate shows it 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.
Rhinoceros sondaicus
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 park. With no second population to fall back on, a single outbreak of disease could reach every animal.
Rhinory Foundation’s partner for both of Indonesia’s rhino species, the Javan and the Sumatran. Its programs include Rhino Protection Units and reforestation. Read more about International Rhino Foundation
As many as 26 Javan rhinos were killed by a poaching ring between 2019 and 2023, uncovered only in 2023. Every survivor lives in a single Indonesian park.
* The 2021 count of 76 was not a true peak. Once the ring was confirmed in 2023, the estimate was revised to about 50.
Dicerorhinus sumatrensis
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 once lived in Malaysia too. Habitat loss has left it in small, isolated groups that breed with difficulty.
Runs the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary at Way Kambas, and Wildlife Protection Teams in the Leuser Ecosystem. Read more about International Rhino Foundation
Earlier figures of fewer than 80 proved too high, and a slow real decline continued underneath. The count now sits at 34 to 47.
* The 2021 drop reflects that correction, not a single-year crash. The 2024 estimate repeats the 2021 range.
2025: 352, an eleven-year low
South Africa holds most of the world’s white and black rhinos, so what happens there moves the African numbers above. Poaching losses have fallen by two-thirds since 2016, from 1,054 to 352. That is still nearly one rhino a day.
Four pressures sit behind every number above. Each has an answer, and our partners are working on all four.
Demand for rhino horn in some markets drives it.
Ranger teams and intelligence-led operations push back. Ol Pejeta Conservancy has gone eight consecutive years without losing a single rhino to poaching.
As farms and roads spread, the range shrinks and splits apart.
Securing land and restoring forest gives rhinos room again. In Way Kambas, that work includes replanting rhino habitat.
The communities that share a landscape with rhinos often bear the cost of protecting them.
Conservation lasts when those communities share in it, through livelihoods and education.
When only a few dozen animals remain, low genetic diversity, disease and slow breeding all become risks.
Careful monitoring and semi-wild breeding help, as at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Way Kambas.
All five still have a future in the wild, and keeping it takes funding on the ground. Give directly, or join the Conservation Circle and let the wine help.
Thank you for being part of the Conservation Circle: every bottle you open already helps. A gift to the Foundation goes straight to work for rhinos.
A Texas Hill Country winery and the home of Blake, our southern white rhino. Because we pour wine, one question first: are you 21 or older?
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Our site is for guests 21 and older, so it’s goodbye for now. Come back when you’re 21; Blake will be here.
Already a rhino fan? The International Rhino Foundation has plenty to read in the meantime.
