Rare Rhino Head-Butts Hidden Camera

May 29, 2008 -- Hidden cameras in the jungles of Indonesia's Java island have captured rare footage of the world's most threatened rhino, boosting efforts to save it from extinction, conservationists said Thursday.

Two camera traps set up in the remote Ujung Kulon national park yielded new footage of the endangered Javan rhinoceros, said Adhi Hariyadi, leader of the project by the environmental group WWF.

The footage will help conservationists fighting to save the species, which numbers only around 60 in the wild, by giving new information on the rhinos' health as well as vital insights into their breeding habits, said Hariyadi.

"We have already been able to observe a mother and calf walking and rearing and in the process of separation," he said.

The motion-triggered, infrared cameras caught nighttime footage of one female rhino and her calf in the lush forest of Ujung Kulon.

Seeing the unfamiliar device hanging against a tree, the mother charges the camera with a full-force head butt, and the picture disappears.

In spite of the blow from the rhino mother's head, the green camera box was retrieved and set up to capture more footage the next day, Hariyadi said.

The footage will be key in efforts to save the endangered species, Hariyadi said. The roughly 50 Javan rhinos living in Ujung Kulon make up the only viable population capable of reproducing.

Despite the rhino knocking the camera to the ground, the footage of mother and calf beforehand will be useful for understanding how the Javan rhinos care for their young, and how and when they force their children to fend for themselves, he said.

"(The footage) basically fills in the puzzle, and since we are challenged to increase the population of Javan rhinos in the future it basically helps us to identify suitable environments for them," he said.