Namibian environment authorities want more control over tourism after the deaths this year of four endangered black rhino calves, apparently because of stress caused by too many tourists.
"We are not sure why so many calves died, but we suspect they were suffering stress from too many tourists chasing after them," a spokesperson for the independent Save the Rhino Trust (SRT) told AFP Friday.
The Namibian desert rhino calves died in the northwestern Damaraland and Kaokoland communal area, covering some 25,000 square kilometers (10,000 square miles), where animals roam freely and there are no tourist controls.
The SRT blamed in particular "undisciplined" tourists from neighboring South Africa who visit the area in off-road vehicles in large numbers.
South Africans ignore rules forbidding off-road driving and take their vehicles into pristine, ecologically sensitive areas to view the rare rhinos, it said.
SRT founder Blythe Loutit complained that a popular South African tourism magazine recently published maps of where the rhinos could be found.
Tangeni Erkana, permanent secretary of the ministry of environment and tourism, asked tour operators, lodge owners and safari groups to urge self-drive tourists not to disturb the desert black rhinos.
Tourists driving up to the animals caused them to flee, often separating cows from their calves, Erkana wrote in an open letter this week.
This behavior causes huge stress on the animals, he warned, adding: "Imagine if this happens several times during each day."
The black desert rhino, or Diceros bicornis bicornis, was on the edge of extinction in the late 1980s because of poaching, with about 15 animals left.
Although the rhinos are slow breeders, breeding on average only once every seven years, their numbers have since recovered, but exact figures are kept secret to discourage poaching -- WINDHOEK (AFP)
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