Hanoi - Biologists working with trained dogs have confirmed that critically endangered Javan rhinos remain alive in the Vietnamese jungle, a conservation organization said Friday. The Worldwide Fund for Nature's (WWF) biologists in Vietnam and the country's forest service began using the dogs to survey a national park on November 10, WWF press officer Julianne Becker said. Within five days, they had found seven rhino dung samples.
The Javan rhinoceros was believed to be extinct on the South-East Asian mainland until 1988, when hunters in Vietnam shot one. Biologists think fewer than 10 of the animals remain in Vietnam.
The sniffer dogs were trained by Pack Leader, a US organization that specializes in dogs for wildlife surveying. They were first exposed to Javan rhino dung in Indonesia before being brought to Vietnam for the survey.
Becker said the organization was keeping secret the name of the national park where the rhinos were found, to foil poachers.
Hunting endangered species is illegal in Vietnam, but rhino horn is highly sought after in Chinese and Vietnamese traditional medicine, and can bring thousands of dollars per kilogram on the black market.
