Rhino, The Story Of The Rhinoceros And A Plea For Its Conservation By Daryl & Sharna Balfour

Rhino: The Story Of The Rhinoceros And A Plea For Its Conservation (First Edition)
A Definitive Photographic Document and Ecological Survey of the World’s Imperilled Perissodactyla Species

Bibliographic Specifications
• Title: Rhino: The Story Of The Rhinoceros And A Plea For Its Conservation
• Author: Daryl & Sharna Balfour
• Publisher: Struik Publishers (Pty) Ltd, Cape Town
• Publication Date: 1991
• ISBN-10: 1868251519
• ISBN-13: 9781868251513
• Edition Details: First Edition, Standard Hardcover Release.
• Binding: Original publisher's premium cloth-bound hardboards accented by custom spine typography, housed in the original illustrated dust jacket.
• Physical Format: Quarto (4to), 176 pages. Lavishly enhanced with spectacular full-page wildlife photography portfolios, global distribution maps, historic population grids, and comprehensive cross-referenced scientific indices printed on high-grade semi-gloss stock.
• Language: English 

Official Condition Report
• The Book: Very Good (VG)
o Exterior / Boards: The original publisher's cloth-bound hardboards are in very good, structurally robust condition, presenting exceptionally flat faces, clean margins, and straight joints. The spine holds its original secure binding geometry, completely straight and undamaged.
o Interior: Pristine, intact, and brilliantly clean. The 176 pages and rich colour photographic sequences remain highly vibrant and free of localized foxing, age-toning, or thumb-soil. Features a clean, authentic contemporary ownership inscription on the preliminary/first blank page, which adds a touch of private collection provenance without distracting from the text block. The internal binding holds perfectly secure.
• The Dust Jacket: Very Good (VG)
o Condition Details: The original illustrated jacket remains highly complete, bright, and visually appealing. It exhibits traditional, honest signs of historical shelf handling, displaying limited, minor edge-wear and localized light creasing along the margins and spine endpoints. The entire jacket has been carefully encased inside a professional, removable clear cellophane archival jacket sleeve, which beautifully shields the vintage cover art and halts future environmental wear or friction.

Synopsis & Historical Value
Published in 1991 by the historic Struik house, Rhino: The Story Of The Rhinoceros And A Plea For Its Conservation stands as a monumental landmark in Southern African wildlife literature and natural history photography. The foundational core of this volume is built upon two exhaustive years spent by acclaimed photojournalists Daryl and Sharna Balfour living and working deep within the Okavango Delta of Botswana. There, they closely tracked, observed, and recorded rhinos in their untouched, natural habitats. [1, 2]

Far more than a passive coffee-table picture book, this volume functions as an informative, deeply analytical document of behavioral ecology and an urgent warning against imminent extinction. The text looks in turn at all five remaining rhino species of the world: the severely threatened black and white rhinoceroses of Africa, the Indian rhino, and the critically endangered Javan and Sumatran rhinos. The Balfours deliver a wealth of natural history data, outlining daily social habits, territorial behaviors, and the faunal communities that associate with them. Crucially, the book confronts the modern poaching crisis, providing a blunt, up-to-date look at the global rhino horn syndicate, habitat pressures, and the defensive anti-poaching dilemmas faced by African governments. Concluding with a dense scientific appendix detailing common names, size specifications, food preferences, and status reviews alongside an administrative directory of conservation agencies, this out-of-print masterpiece is an indispensable collectible asset for wildlife conservationists, Africana libraries, and fine photography collectors. 

Author Profile: Daryl & Sharna Balfour
Daryl and Sharna Balfour are internationally revered South African wildlife photojournalists, field naturalists, and highly prolific authors whose iconic wilderness portfolios have captured the global imagination for decades. Master track-interpreters and conservation advocates, they spent extensive periods embedded in Africa's premier wildlife sanctuaries—including the Okavango Delta, Chobe, and East Africa's Masai Mara—mastering the difficult art of documenting apex fauna. Over their illustrious collaborative career, they have authored more than a dozen best-selling volumes, including Simply Safari, African Elephants: A Celebration of Majesty, Etosha, and This is Botswana. Celebrated globally by scientific and media institutions alike, their photographs appear regularly in elite international publications such as National Geographic, BBC Wildlife, Audubon, and Newsweek, establishing them as enduring benchmarks in modern African natural history documentation.