Last September, a zoo in the Czech Republic set fire to 60 kilograms of rhinoceros horn, a fitting overture to the seventh annual World Rhino Day, which followed in various rhino-aware locales around the world on September 22.

The rhino is being poached to extinction for its horn, which is used in traditional medicine and as an aphrodisiac in Asia. A rumour going around that a Vietnamese minister’s relative was cured of cancer with rhino horn hasn’t helped. Hasn’t helped the rhino, that is.

At the beginning of the 20th Century, there were 500,000 rhinos roaming Africa and Asia. Today, there are 29,000. In Sumatra, the rhino population is down to less than 100. In Java, there are 35-45 left.

There is some good news, rhino fans. The southern white rhino has come back: from 50 individuals early in the twentieth century to 20,000 today. But now poaching threatens to reverse those gains.

The rhino, in short, is in a sorry state. Unfortunately, they are not really sexy beasts and Save the Rhino doesn’t have the same urgent resonance as Save the Tigers or Save the Whales.

I’m not sure why I’m feeling such solidarity for the rhinoceros (which means “nose horn”, of course). Maybe I can relate to its reputation for near-sighted stubbornness. But when you add up the facts, rhinos are worth saving:

Even though they weigh in at a tonne on average, rhinos are vegetarians.

There are white rhinos and black rhinos, and both species are actually gray.

A group of rhinos is called a “crash”.

Black rhinos are the most aggressive of the species, and they can attack at speeds of 50 kph. But such attacks are rare and most black rhinos would more typically be found snoozing in the shade.

The rhino horn is made of the same stuff as human fingernails.

Rhino moms take 15 months to give birth.

Rhino babies can walk within 10 minutes.

Rhinos have notoriously poor eyesight, but there’s nothing wrong with their intestines: a white rhino produces about 50 pounds of poo a day.

Rhinos are cute. If you don’t believe me, check this out.

Rhinos somehow managed to survive for 40 million years. Then we turned up.

Rhino poaching has grown increasingly alarming. Many years, more than 1000 white rhinos are slaughtered in South Africa alone. Do the math: that’s 5 per cent of the surviving population.

If the current rate of poaching continues, rhino deaths will exceed rhino births by 2016-18.

And you know what that means.

There’s no time to wait. Save the rhino!