The World - News from April 25, 1989

Surviving decades of war and defoliation, a small population of the world’s rarest rhinoceros has been found in the jungles of Vietnam. George Schaller, director of Wildlife Conservation International, a division of the New York Zoological Society, found evidence of a population of perhaps 10 to 15 Javan rhinos along the Dong Nai River, about 75 miles northeast of Ho Chi Minh City, during an expedition in February and March. Although no live animals were sighted, a dead one was found and there were fresh tracks, Schaller said. The Javan rhinoceros, thought to have been extinct in Vietnam since the 1960s, is similar to the African black rhino but is chunkier and has heavy skin folds that give it an armored look.