Rhino poaching almost doubled in South Africa’s Kruger National Park in 2025 compared to the previous year, despite interventions including dehorning and lie detector tests for rangers, the government said Tuesday.
South Africa is home to the world’s largest population of rhinos, which are poached for their horns that fetch high prices on the black market.
Kruger, one of Africa’s biggest national parks, lost 175 rhinos to poachers in 2025, following 88 reported the previous year, the environment ministry said in a statement.
Across the country, poachers killed 352 of the animals over last year, a 16 percent drop from 2024, it said, citing good results from dehorning programmes and detection measures such as the use of advanced cameras and sensors.
Kruger had noted a link between failed polygraph tests on its rangers and a surge in poaching, with follow-up investigations resulting in the dismissal of seven staff, it said.
South Africa has the biggest rhino population in the world, with nearly 14,390 of the animals at the end of 2024, more than 80 percent of them white rhinos, according to the International Rhino Foundation. The global population is about 26,700, it says.
The environment ministry did not say if the poached animals were white rhinos or the black species, which is listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Environment minister Willie Aucamp has proposed reintroducing limited hunting trophy export quotas for black rhinos, elephants and leopards after a four-year freeze that has frustrated hunters and wildlife ranchers.
The quotas published last week for public consultation are for 150 elephants, 12 black rhino and 11 leopards.
South Africa’s elephant population had increased by 41 percent to more than 43,680 animals in the wild, the proposal said.
The suggested quota for black rhino was in accordance with a CITES provision that the number of adult male black rhino exported as hunting trophies does not exceed 0.5 percent of the population, it said.
