Ian Player, conservationist who helped save white rhino, dies at 87

Ian Player, a South African conservationist credited with bringing the white rhinoceros back from the threat of extinction and who was an early promoter of environmental awareness, including the idea of eco-tourism, died Nov. 30 at his home in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. He was 87.

His death was announced by his brother, golfer Gary Player. The cause was a stroke, according to South African news accounts.

Ian Player was a park ranger in his native South Africa early in his career when he developed a deep attachment to the natural world and to the white rhinoceros in particular.

"I will never forget my first view of a white rhino," he wrote in a 2011 essay for the South African publication Business Day. "I was in the Umfolozi Game Reserve in 1952. . . . It was a misty morning and I was looking into a patch of bush when two white rhino came looming out of the mist, with steam rising from their flanks and their backs. . . . .Something within me was deeply touched by this primeval scene, and I had an intuitive flash that somehow my life would be bound up with these great prehistoric animals."

When Player conducted an airborne survey of his South African game reserve in 1953, he counted 437 white rhinos. Thousands lived in central Africa at the time, but that population has been wiped out.

Player set about finding ways to increase the rhino's chances of survival. He led efforts to move groups of the animals to other locations, including South Africa's sprawling Kruger National Park, in order to increase its long-term chances.

Ian Cedric Audley Player was born March 15, 1927, in Johannesburg. His father sold gold-mining equipment.

Player was interested in physical fitness in his youth. Gary Player, who won the Masters and British Open tournaments three times each, told Sports Illustrated that his older brother fashioned his first golf club from a tree branch and taught him the rudiments of the sport.