This year is set to end with a record number of rhino having been slaughtered across the country.
More than 900 rhino have been killed this year, but South African National Parks says international arrests are playing a major role in the fight against poaching.
It's also stepping up efforts to protect the endangered species, of which 946 have been killed across South Africa so far this year.
SANParks spokesman Reynold Thakhuli said 573 of those have been poached in the Kruger National Park.
"However, we are also cushioned by the fact that the arrests have also been quite significant. In the Kruger National Park alone we have arrested 123 people," he said.
Last year 267 suspects were arrested.
In 2012, 668 were killed, nearly 300 less than this year. But authorities say partnerships with countries like Vietnam, Japan and Mozambique have yielded positive results.
"Already we are seeing movements in Mozambique where people are also getting arrested before they even reach the Kruger National Park. The political will is there in our country and we can only hope that other countries can assist us," Thakhuli said.
Earlier in the year South Africa signed agreements with Vietnam and the People's Republic of China on cooperation in law enforcement and compliance with international conventions.
But although 330 arrests have been made nationwide, authorities are battling to nail kingpins operating globally.
"We are not yet cracking syndicates but we have arrested people that could lead us to the syndicates. We are unfortunately arresting a lot of foot soldiers," Thakhuli said.
As poachers appear to be stepping up their illegal trade, the South African National Parks says new strategies and methods will be introduced in the next year to fight the scourge.
Rhinoceros poaching in South Africa has surged at least 42 percent this year with nearly a 20th of the local herd killed as the demand for their horns, which is falsely believed to cure cancer and boost sexual prowess, continued to rise.
So far 946 rhinos have been poached in 2013, exceeding the 668 animals killed last year, the Department of Environmental Affairs said in an e-mailed statement today. Three hundred and thirty people have been arrested in 2013 for poaching-related offenses compared with 267 last year.
Kruger National Park, an area the size of Israel that borders Mozambique, was the region most affected by poaching with 573 of the animals killed, the department said. The country's Limpopo province was the second highest with 106.
South Africa is militarizing its force of park rangers as poachers kill more rhinos to feed a market for horns in Vietnam and China. White and black rhinos were brought back from the brink of extinction in South Africa in the 1960s to a population of close to 20,000, about 90 percent of the global rhino population.
Most of them are the larger white rhinos, which can weigh more than two metric tons.
Rhino poaching in the Kruger National Park is continuing at an alarming rate, with the park losing as many as two animals a day.
"But we have had several successes too," said SANParks spokesman Ike Phaahla.
Rangers at the park had arrested 128 poachers, most of them Mozambicans, and killed 44, Phaahla said.
According to SANParks, in the latest attack rangers killed two poachers near Stolsnek, near Pretoriuskop, in the southwest of the park. One poacher was able to evade the rangers.
No evidence was found of the three having shot a rhino before being intercepted.
One of Africa's most prized natural assets, the rhino, has come on the brink of extinction as illegal poachers from Asia have increased exponentially. The rhino's horn, while its main source of protection, has become its worst enemy, currently priced higher than gold.
South Africa is the epicenter of the poaching battle, at present home to around 85 percent of Africa's 25,000 rhinos.
While in 2007, 13 rhinos were poached, in 2011, the number rose to 448 and 618 have already been poached in 2012. Most of the killings take place in the world-famous Kruger National Park, one of the continent's biggest tourist attractions. As a member of the "big 5" animal group, the rhino is an important part of maintaining wildlife tourism in South Africa, a large portion of South Africa's economy.
Illegal wildlife trade is at $7 billion to $8 billion per year, comparable to the money criminals can get in drugs, arms or human trafficking. At present, in the black market the rhino horn costs around $65,000 per kg, which is more than the price of gold. Moreover, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), since 2003, Vietnamese hunters are estimated to have paid more than $22 million to hunt rhinos in South Africa.
According to Robert Hormats, under secretary for economic growth, energy and the environment at the U.S. Department of State, the demand for rhino horns has increasingly gone up in the last 20 years partly because more people have more money to spend. For example, even though medical science has proven that rhino horn does not cure cancer, there are plenty of people with money who believe it does and are willing to pay up to $30,000 to get it, resulting in the slaughter of this endangered animal and an increasingly sophisticated breed of poachers.
In the recent years, the South African government has set forth many efforts to stop the poaching of the rhinos in Kruger National Park. The South African government has closed any loopholes in laws, which would allow poachers to earn legal hunting permits.
Most important of these efforts is increasing the number of rangers who patrol the park. Many times, these rangers shoot the poachers, at times killing them. By making the risk of death higher, the government hopes to decrease the number of poachers who arrive in South Africa.
Nonetheless, sophisticated guarding methods have resulted in more sophisticated poaching methods. So far, however, none of South Africa's methods have focused on targeting the demand.
A grim new record was set this week as the number of rhino hunted illegally reached 919.
This was revealed in a statement by the South African National Parks, following a meeting by the parliamentary portfolio committee on water and environmental affairs at Skukuza in Kruger National Park.
"So far this year, 560 rhino have been poached in the Kruger National Park. And the provincial figures stand at a total of 359," said the Department of Environmental Affairs.
South African Defence Force Lt-Col Sakkie Stuurman told The Citizen at a briefing in the Kruger last week, illegal hunting hotspots included Houtboschrand, Crocodile Bridge, Stoltznek, Vlakte-plaas, and N'wanetsi.
This week's Skukuza workshop was attended by around 80 delegates, included 13 members of the portfolio committee, the Department of Environmental Affairs, provincial departments, SanParks, private rhino owners and numerous stakeholders and NGOs.
As the festive season commences, rhino activists celebrated a small victory with law enforcement officials in the Limpopo Province.
On Monday, the 19-year-old Musa Simango pleaded guilty to charges relating to rhino poaching and was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment by the Louis Trichardt Regional Court.
Simango was caught red-handed in the Punda Maria area of the Kruger National Park (KNP) on Monday, 28 October. He and two other suspects were spotted by rangers and pursued by helicopters. Simango was eventually caught and arrested. His partners in crime managed to elude arrest.
The police and rangers, however, did not back down, and kept on searching for the two escapees. While chasing the remaining two suspects down, there was a gunfight between the suspects and the rangers.
One suspect, Derrick Maluleke (34), was fatally wounded, while the remaining suspect slipped through the rangers' fingers. According to the police's provincial spokesperson, Col Ronel Otto, the police found three live bullets in Simango's pockets. After the shooting incident, the police also confiscated a firearm.
Simango pleaded guilty to single counts of illegal activities in a protected area (hunt of a rhino), the illegal possession of ammunition and trespassing. He was, respectively, sentenced to eight years imprisonment on the first charge, three years for the second charge and one year for the charge of trespassing. Simango's last two sentences will be served concurrently with his conviction on the first charge, meaning that he effectively received a direct sentence of eight years' imprisonment.
Following the court's verdict, provincial police commissioner Lt Gen Fannie Masemola applauded the magistrate, as well as Lt Willie Taute of the Musina Stock Theft Unit, for opposing bail and securing the conviction. "The more hefty sentences the court gives to rhino poachers, the better for our vulnerable rhinos," Masemola said.
Samsung has partnered with the Rhinoceros DNA Index System (RhODIS). RhODIS was developed as a forensic tool to assist in addressing the current rhino poaching crisis in South Africa by linking recovered rhinoceros horn to poaching cases.
The mobile application, which provides the information technology backbone to support RhODIS, was unveiled at the recent international DNA training workshop held at the South African Wildlife College in collaboration with the Department of Environmental Affairs and the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC).
South Africa is currently facing a crisis as the number of rhinos killed has increased drastically. This can be seen in the large leap from 333 rhinos poached in 2010 to 860 this year. The report further showed that the Kruger National Park continues to bear the brunt of rhino poaching, as reported by the DEA this month. The continued fight against rhino poaching has united the nation – with valiant and well-coordinated efforts implemented by government, law enforcement agencies, South African National Parks and private organisations.
The eRhODIS mobile app is used to gather DNA evidence, geographical data and upload photographs. Collected information has already been used as evidence to support several cases involving poachers and traffickers. It links the suspect to a specific crime scene through matching DNA from recovered horns and weapons used to kill animals. The database also includes DNA profiles of live rhinoceros and horn in stockpiles, which further provides a powerful tool for authorities to trace and link each animal and horn individually. The archive presently includes over 10 000 samples from black and white rhinoceros from all over Africa.
The eRhODIS app has been designed to guide the user through the standard procedure of collecting samples and completing required data fields. It is intended to support the use of the rhinoceros sampling kits developed as part of the project and is available to all investigators, the environmental management inspectorate, veterinarians and officials trained and authorised to use the RhODISÒ kits.
Kruger National Park,South Africa - Investigators comb the crime scene, planting a small red flag in the spot where a bullet shell lies near the latest victim in South Africa's Kruger National Park.
Vultures circle above the gigantic decomposing rhino carcass baking in the sun in the sparse bush after illegal poachers shot it for its horn.
Almost 900 rhinos have been killed this year alone in South Africa.
A hole gapes above the bull's nose, where a poacher hacked off its distinctive horn for the Asian black market. Scavengers have already feasted on the wound.
The horn of his female companion, lying 100 metres (yards) away, is intact, suggesting the poachers may have been disturbed before finishing the job and fleeing across the border to Mozambique, just four kilometres (2.5 miles) away.
South African wildlife authorities search for all the clues they can to help establish what strategy the criminals use and any pattern to the killings.
"We collect every piece of evidence left behind by the poachers, including cartridges used to shoot the animal," said Kobus de Wet, chief environmental crime investigator at South African National Parks.
"The evidence is presented in court, if we happen to link any person to the crime."
Investigators wearing elbow-length rubber gloves scan the bull's thick hide with a metal detector, then cut the area around its wound open with scalpels for their postmortem report.
By the end of January the man heading SANParks anti-poaching operations should know whether his men will be given the hot pursuit option into Mozambique when tracking suspected rhino poachers.
Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa expects a memorandum of understanding between Mozambique and South Africa to be signed by then. This, she told a rhino poaching workshop in Skukuza, was to meet the deadline set by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) for South Africa's eastern neighbour and Vietnam to report on concrete legislative and other measures to curb rhino poaching.
Retired South African Army General Johan Jooste included hot pursuit when he presented a strategy to curb rhino poaching in the Kruger National Park to SANParks management in August. He wants approval for rangers, soldiers and other government agencies to track suspected poachers across the international border without fear of reprisal.
As matters stand currently any cross-border follow-up on rhino or other poaching could lead to an international incident.
Molewa has visited Mozambique to discuss measures aimed at minimising the loss of rhinos in South Africa's iconic game reserve to poachers.
That Mozambique is the origin of the majority of poachers entering Kruger was confirmed last month by former Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano. Speaking at the launch of a wildlife preservation foundation in Maputo, he said 70% of rhino killing in South Africa could be attributed to Mozambicans. This is borne out by South African arrest figures in connection with cases of suspected rhino poaching which show that 68% are from Mozambique.
Molewa told the workshop, convened under the auspices of the Parliamentary portfolio committee on water and environmental affairs, that both countries have engaged in "concrete measures to stamp out the scourge (of rhino poaching)" since her visit to Maputo.
According to her "portions of the boundary fence between South Africa and Mozambique have been repaired and, in some instances, re-erected following damage caused during serious flooding earlier this year".