Sumatran rhino: the last cousin of the woolly rhino

Meet the Sumatran rhino

The Sumatran rhino is the smallest of the five living rhino species. It stands 1.2 to 1.45 metres at the shoulder and is about 2.5 metres long, weighing 500 to 960 kilos. It is also the hairiest: in the wild, its reddish-brown skin is covered in short, bristly hair, and in captivity its coat becomes properly shaggy.

It has two horns: a front horn 15 to 25 centimetres long, and a second one further back that is often little more than a bump.

It lives in dense tropical forest, from lowlands to mountains. A solitary animal, it spends much of the day rolling in mud wallows, which keep it cool, protect its skin and get rid of parasites. It eats leaves, shoots and fruit — 50 to 60 kilos a day, almost 10% of its body weight. It is also surprisingly chatty, communicating with whistles and whines.

It was once found from the foothills of Bhutan and north-east India to southern China, Cambodia and Thailand. Today it survives only in a handful of forests in Sumatra and Borneo, in Indonesia.

Did you know? The Sumatran rhino is the closest living relative of the woolly rhino, which roamed Europe and Asia during the last Ice Age. Its reddish coat is a distant reminder of that ancestry.

Why it is endangered

The population was estimated at around 800 animals in 1986, then 280 to 320 in 2007. According to a 2025 report by the IUCN’s rhino specialists and the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC, only 34 to 47 are left in the wild.

Two threats have piled up. First, poaching for its horn, which sells for high prices on the black market. Second, the loss and fragmentation of the forests of Sumatra and Borneo. The surviving rhinos are stranded in scattered patches of forest — so few and so far apart that they struggle to find each other to breed.

That is the trap of very small populations: fewer animals mean fewer births, and every loss hits twice as hard. The 2025 report is also alarmed that no Sumatran rhinos have been confirmed in the south of the island.

In Borneo, the situation is even more critical. A distinct subspecies, the Bornean rhino, may be down to just two or three animals, according to the same report. It has already disappeared from Malaysia: in 2019, the death of Iman, a female in captivity, marked the loss of the country’s last Sumatran rhino.

What is being done to save it

In 1996, the International Rhino Foundation and the Indonesian organisation Yayasan Badak Indonesia (YABI) set up the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Way Kambas National Park. Covering around a hundred hectares of forest, it is now home to ten rhinos. Their mission is to build a genetically diverse reserve population that could one day help repopulate protected forests. Keepers there also study the species’ little-known biology, to better protect it in the wild. These rhinos form an “insurance” population: once the threats are removed, they could help re-establish wild populations.

Progress is slow but real. In 2012, a female called Ratu gave birth to Andatu, the first Sumatran rhino born in captivity in Indonesia. Delilah followed in 2016, then Sedah Mirah in 2022 — after eight miscarriages by her mother — fathered by Andatu himself, and two more calves in 2023. One of them, Indra, was born to Delilah: the first time a captive-born Sumatran rhino had given birth herself.

Hope keeps growing. In October 2026, Indonesia’s Forestry Ministry announced that Ratu and Delilah were each expecting another calf. Ratu, aged 26, is expecting her fourth and Delilah, aged 10, her second. “This achievement did not happen overnight,” the ministry stressed. In the field, the priority remains finding and protecting the last wild rhinos before they become too isolated to breed.

How you can help

Sauvons les animaux does not collect donations. These recognised organisations work for the Sumatran rhino:

• International Rhino Foundation supports the Way Kambas sanctuary and the protection of the species. Donate to the International Rhino Foundation
• Save the Rhino International funds programmes for all five rhino species. Donate to Save the Rhino

And in everyday life:

1. Don’t believe the horn myth. Rhino horn is made of keratin, just like our fingernails. Spread the word: demand is what drives poaching.
2. Be wary of products linked to tropical deforestation. Choose certified wood and paper, and palm oil from responsible supply chains.
3. Introduce people to this little-known rhino — very few know there is such a thing as a hairy rhino.