The sale of the 2,000 endangered rhinos, equipment and the land at the Platinum Rhino Project, which is about 155 kilometers (96 miles) southwest of Johannesburg, comes as South Africa fights to protect rhinos in its nature reserves against illegal hunters who have decimated the wild population.

John Hume, the owner of the ranch, failed in his attempts to legalize the trade in rhino horns — which can be sawn off live rhinos and grow back — rendering the project too costly to keep running, the company said. The trade is banned as its use in East Asia for alleged cancer cures and virility boosters has led to an illicit market that has caused rampant poaching.

“The project needs a new custodian to take over, someone who’s got the vision and the same passion,” said Tammy Hume, a spokeswoman for Platinum Rhino, where about 100 rhinos are born every year. “To save the species you need to breed it. Otherwise it will go extinct if it’s under so much stress.

Illegal killings reached a peak of more than 1,200 in 2014 and a drought the next year has left the Kruger National Park, where the bulk of South Africa’s rhinos live, with only 3,549 white rhinos, according to the 2020 annual report of South African National Parks.

The rhinos are southern white rhino, one of two subspecies. The northern white rhino is virtually extinct.

At Platinum Rhino the animals roam the ranch and are given additional food. There is also an orphanage to take care of rhino calves if they are sick or if their mother has died. 

If the online auction, which ends on May 1, fails the viability of the breeding herd will be threatened, Tammy Hume said. 

“The only real option open to us is to disband the project,” she said. “So break it down, sell off the rhinos piecemeal and that breeding ability will be forever gone.”