The hottest topic in South
Africa today is without a doubt, rhinos. It is such a concerning issue that it
is being made an international concern with concerts, fundraisers, and
awareness rallies in all major cities across the U.S. (that I know of). The issue is that since 2008 the number
of rhinos killed in Africa have skyrocketed to levels that are completely
unsustainable. In 2007 only 13 rhinos
were killed in South Africa, last year 668 rhinos. As of April 3 of this year already 203 have been killed in South Africa. I have wanted to talk about this for a
long time, however I wanted to go see the issues for myself, as well as listen
and learn from those directly involved.
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Rhinos
are an ancient style of mega-mammal, whose family has existed since the early
ice over 35 million years ago. Today there are 5 species of rhino, 2 in Africa
and the other 3 in Asia and the Pacific islands.
What’s so special about the
horn?
Ancient Chinese and Asian traditional medicine use ground up rhino horn
to “treat” a whole slew of condition from headaches, fever, STDs. Most
importantly in 2008 traditional Chinese pharmacists stated that rhino horn
cures cancer.
Does it work? NO!
Rhino horn is made of the
same material as all animal nails and hair, the protein keratin. It does absolutely nothing! Doctors,
chemists, universities, and hospitals around the world have done extensive
tests to see if rhino horn does anything and they have found….ZIP! Consuming
ground up rhino horn does the same thing as eating your fingernails. I’m sure
if eating fingernails or hair cured cancer or STDs we’d all be on a healthy
diet of it.
Why does it persist?
Old
traditions die slow, but not slow enough sadly. Rhino horn consumption across
Asia is increasing. Not only do common people try to use it to cure their
aliments, but rhino horn is seen as an elite status item in countries such as
Vietnam and China driving the demand.
Why not use Asian Rhinos?
Well they have basically used them all. The Indian Rhino has less than 3,000
animals left, all highly protected in India, the Javan Rhino: 40 animals left, Sumatran Rhino: 275 left. So the Asian black market has turned to Africa to get
their stock, specifically South Africa where 90% of all the Rhino in the world exist.
Black and White rhinos have
almost gone extinct several times in the last few decades, but conservationist,
governments, parks and even militaries has helped them to recover. White rhino
numbered less than 1000 in the mid 60’s, but through massive efforts their
numbers have increased to about 14,000. Black Rhino
however, have a much slower recovery and have only been able to recover to less
than 5,000. This year it is
estimated that some 1,000 rhino could be poached from Kruger National Park
alone! This spells disaster for the rhino, as they may all be killed in less
than a decade.
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| White rhino mother and calf (Phinda Private Game Reseve) |
Local people are the ones
who do the poaching. All do it for
greed. A local person may be $200
(USD) per horn, which is somewhat of a lot of money around here where almost no
one works, pays taxes, or really has anything worthwhile going on in their
life. Fair enough most of the poachers are from Mozambique and cross the border
to poach. They surely don’t live the best lives and I’m sure a lot of them do
it to feed their families. $200 is
about how much these people would make in maybe 5 years.
However, regardless of
their needs, it does not change the brutality and inhumanity these people have
toward the animals. They sneak into national parks and private reserves with
chainsaws, guns, generators, and machetes. They shoot the rhino, sometimes
killing it, most times not. If not, they hack into the back of the rhino with a
machete to sever the spinal cord. However, sometimes they will just take a
chainsaw to the animals face while it’s alive.
There was a poaching
incident in the park I do research in while I was there. Local poachers killed a rhino by
slashing into it’s back with machetes and then slashed off her face with the
machetes taking the horn. If
that’s not sad enough, that rhino was a mother. Her calf sat there and watched
that and later was likely killed by lions. If that’s not enough, the mother was also 5
months pregnant. So for $200, these men butchered an animal and effectively
dropped the rhino population by 3 in one night.
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| This is the rhino was was killed in Tembe last month. Notice the hack in the back, that was done while she was still alive. |
These rhino horns are then
smuggled out of the country by Asian black market confederates, where they are
worth up to $70,000 per pound. What
is even more messed up is that the Asian government consulates here are helping
to smuggle the products out. For awhile Thai government officials were bringing
prostitutes to game farms, where you can kill a rhino for about $20,000 and
then smuggling the horns back to Thailand in embassy packages.
All of this death and
destruction so that people in China, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, and others can
eat essentially “fingernails” that will never in any way cure them of anything.
Solutions?
A lot of people
suggest legalizing the rhino horn trade. White rhinos can be domesticated like
cattle and the horn can be harvested every 6 months. Why not legalize it, tax
it, and regulate it? That would spell instantaneous extinction for the rhino.
Right now there is only a small percentage of people in Asia that use rhino
horns and it is generally a somewhat exclusive product. If it were made legal, flooding the
market would only open up the consumer base and demand would shoot to levels
unheard of. If this happened, all
the rhino farms in the world (2) would not be able to keep up the demand. Not to mention that getting horns from
poachers is cheap as dirt; $200 for a product worth in the hundreds of the
thousands. All the rhinos would be
gone in 3 years.
They also tried removing all the horns from wild rhinos surgically. The issue is then poachers kill a rhino, find out it has no horn and they go kill another. So that had the opposite intended affect.
Chemical Warfare
Just this month in Sabi Sands Park they started injecting ectoparasites into their rhino's horns. The ectoparasites stay in the horn for 3-4 years and if consumed will cause extreme vomiting, nausea, and convulsions. The hope is that if these make it to the market, they will help reverse the idea that rhino horn is actually medicine.
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| Rhino Conservationist inject ectoparasites into rhino horns |
The issues are economic and
cultural. Economic in that Asian
markets take advantage of poor African people to poach. If the wealth gap did
not exist in Southern Africa poachers would have no reason to risk their lives
to make $200. Greed drives them,
usually not starvation. These people are not starving, they just don’t have
money, living in communities that don’t have money or use money. Instead they
buy cars or guns, because most poachers are tied into gangs (that's a whole other can of worms).
It is cultural because of
traditional Asian medicine. For thousands of years Asians have been harvesting
Asian rhino horns and today they have actually succeeded in driving animals to
extinction. In the modern age,
when we have proved without a doubt that it has no medicinal function, they
still will pay insane amounts rather than using western medicine that actually
works. This is why some traditions
and cultures need to go extinct.
Military Force
Poaching has reached new heights in South Africa. Every single park,
reserve, game farm has some sort of military presences now. They all have
Anti-Poaching Units, or armed rangers with military training who patrol the
park borders trying to capture poachers. In Kruger National Park (which is the
size of Israel and borders Mozambique) hundreds of men patrol the Mozambique border to prevent them
from walking over to take horns.
Recently U.S. Special Forces Veterans volunteered to be in Kruger to
act as trainers and snipers ("Battleground: Rhino Wars" is an Animal Planet show about it). So far no affect, but we need more people willing to step up to the plate like this.
What’s the answer?
Shame
the Asians; shame them and their traditional medicine. Based on Asian culture,
shame is the only method that will work. Enforcement has forced the market
underground. But shame, will make them want to change their ways, make the socialites give up their fix.
How to stop the poachers?
Kill them. It is unfortunate, but shooting poachers in site is the only way. As
of now, you have go through a police investigation and process when you catch a
poacher. However, these are people
that are crossing international borders, bringing weapons, stealing national
landmarks, and then selling them illegally internationally. If that does not
sound like a security threat and act of war, I don’t know what is. Shoot them
on site. That will stop people from wanting to be poachers, stop them from considering entering parks. You try to enter the park with a gun; you clearly have intentions of
poaching. That is the only way to strike fear into the gangs and communities
that are doing this.
This issus is one of the main reasons I wanted to come study and work in Africa. Today we will go to war
over religion, threats of violence, and mostly natural resources. But if we are
not willing to go to war over our animal resources, than perhaps we are not the
right stewards for this earth. If drastic action is not taken soon, it is likely that 1,000
rhinos will be killed in Kruger Park alone this year. Next year it may be
double that and that may be the last time we see a wild black rhino. Every 18 hours a Rhino is killed by a human.
Here's a few videos, if you want more information this website is good start: http://www.stoprhinopoaching.com/statistics.aspx
Here's a good documentary on it:
Also if you're looking for a book to read, "Killing for Profit" is a great recent book, by a South African author on the world issue of rhino poaching.
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