South Africa recorded a roughly 16% drop in rhino poaching last year, with 420 animals killed for their horns versus 499 the previous year, the government said on Thursday.

The country is home to nearly half of the critically-endangered black rhino population in Africa and to the world's largest population of near-threatened white rhinos.

Rhino horns - made primarily of keratin, a protein also found in human hair and fingernails - are prized in some East Asian countries for traditional medicine and jewellery.

Of the rhinos poached last year, 320 were killed on state properties and 100 on privately-owned parks, reserves or farms, South Africa's environment minister Dion George said in a statement.

The minister partly attributed the year-on-year decline to a dehorning programme in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, the hardest-hit by poaching.

But he said he was concerned by a recent uptick in rhino deaths in its world-famous Kruger National Park, much of which is remote and hard to police.

Eighty-eight rhinos were poached in the Kruger park last year, up from 78 in 2023.

The government's strategies to clamp down on poaching include lie-detector tests for staff in poaching hotspots like the Kruger and Hluhluwe-iMfolozi parks, the minister's statement said.

Separately, neighbouring Namibia said on Thursday that it had seen an increase in rhino poaching last year, to 83 cases from 69 in 2023.