- Rhino expert John Payne worked with Sumatran rhinos in Malaysia from the 1970s until 2019, when the country’s last rhino died.
- With no rhinos left to care for, Payne has started working with other species, and recently published a book in which he argues the strategy to save Sumatran rhinos from extinction was flawed from the start.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Payne speaks about his new book, moving on after the loss of the rhinos he cared for, and his frustration with officials and conservation organizations.
After her death, Payne, who’d worked on Sumatran rhinos since 1979 (with an admittedly long break in the middle due to “frustration”), was suddenly left without any rhinos to care for, after years of trying to breed the last male and female in Malaysia.
The disappointment hasn’t slowed him down. He’s now working with other species — Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus), Bornean elephants (Elephas maximus) and banteng (Bos javanicus) — and he’s written a book, The Hairy Rhinoceros: History, Ecology and Some Lessons for Management of the Last Megafauna, where he argues that the strategy to save Sumatran rhinos from extinction was flawed from the start by poor compromises and stifled over and over again by bureaucracy.
Among Sumatran rhino experts, Payne has always been known for his candor, his acerbic wit, and his sometimes controversial positions. And he pulls no punches in his latest interview with Mongabay. He criticizes both the rising bureaucracy of conservation organizations, and what he sees as the attitude of Indonesian officials for the delays and inaction on Sumatran rhino conservation.
“The problem was very much Indonesia and the international framework not working,” Payne says, adding that “it’s shocking in this day and age, that Indonesia has its forestry and environment now under one ministry.”
He also thinks Sumatran rhino are only breeding in the Leuser Ecosystem, in Indonesia’s Aceh province, on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra. And if he were in charge, he’d be catching rhinos from there for captive breeding; he’d be collecting egg cells from young rhinos for in-vitro fertilization; and he’d consider maximizing birth intervals by taking rhinos away from their mothers once they are weaned.
‘I’m not distressed, I’m just pissed off’: Q&A with Sumatran rhino expert John Payne