Black rhinos have partially recovered from near-extinction, but poaching continues to cause severe individual suffering and population-level trauma across southern Africa.
Poaching inflicts severe and often non-lethal suffering on rhinos. Attacks involving facial machete wounds while the animal is conscious cause acute agony — several cases of partially dehorned rhinos surviving with permanent injury have been documented. Rhinos that escape after being shot with non-lethal wounds suffer from bullet injuries and subsequent infection for days. Orphaned calves — whose mothers are killed for their horns — experience psychological trauma and require intensive human care for years. Conservation's humane dehorning programs, conducted under full anesthesia with analgesic cover, represent a welfare-positive alternative that removes the economic incentive for poaching without causing lasting harm to the animal.