At the turn of century, Europeans came to this isolated peninsula on the tip of Java to hunt the endangered Javan rhinoceros.

These days an increasing number of tourists visit the Ujung Kulon National Park hoping to shoot the shy beast, not with a gun but with a camera.Park rangers estimate only about 60 rhinos still live in the thick undergrowth of the the park, which 60 years ago was a game reserve, and in 1992 was declared, along with the Komodo islands, as one of Indonesia's first World Heritage areas.

But the long odds of getting a photograph of a rhino does not deter a new breed of "eco-tourists" from trekking below the lush and humid jungle canopy, with all its beauty and discomfort.

"It's very difficult to see a rhino," Sumanta, a forest guide who has worked in the Ujung Kulon park for 31 years, told Reuters recently while guiding visitors on a jungle hike.

"You need to spend much time, at least a month, here, to be sure of success," he said.

But in the 19th century, rhinos were so numerous and damaging to plantations in Java that the government paid money to have them killed. Five hundred were bagged within two years.

The rhino population, for which no past estimates are available, began declining rapidly in the early part of this century after game hunting began.

Park rangers say there is no evidence of poaching of the rhino, which fetches a high price in the illegal wildlife trade.

It's ironic that the Java rhino lives on the isolated diamond-shape peninsula on the most densely populated island on earth.

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The rhino is just one jewel in a sparkling crown of natural wealth only 124 miles from Indonesia's heavily polluted capital of Jakarta.

The 296,520-acre park, which includes a number of islands, is also home to five species of primates, of which three are endemic to Java, and the endangered Javan wild dog. Some species of deer and wild bulls are also found.

Despite its proxmity to a big population center, official figures show only about 3,000 people stayed overnight last year on Peucang Island.

Conservationists say one of the reasons Ujung Kulon remains an untouched area of wilderness on Java is the 1883 eruption of the Krakatau volcano in the adjacent Sunda Straits which killed most people living there.

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