Stan (for Michael) - Thursday
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As I write this, I’m being distracted by an elephant having a bath in the river in front of me. He seems to have it all worked out. First a good long drink, then some splashing to cool off, then a generous wash behind the ears, some mud, and finally a good dusting. There’s still plenty of food about, and he looks pretty happy.
The rhinos look pretty happy too, but they shouldn’t be. The trouble with rhinos is that they have horns which protrude in a way that’s very suggestive to humans (if not to other rhinos). The horn is, of course, actually solidly matted hair and a perfectly natural defense and offense tool. Unfortunately it has obtained a completely undeserved reputation – mainly in the East – not as an aphrodisiac as the shape might suggest, but as a constituent of various traditional medications. A cabinet minister in Vietnam recently claimed it was an ingredient of a medicine which supposedly cured him of cancer. No amount of horrified denials from the medical fraternity will sink advertising like that!
Apart from its design, the sheer rarity of rhino horn is likely to lend it mystique. Trading in it has been banned for many years – even recently in the very countries which are the major users. (An attaché at the Vietnamese embassy here was recalled after being photographed buying a small quantity of the substance.) With the inevitability of market economics, the price has shot up. A male rhino horn will now fetch a price of around $100,000. And the result of that sort of price rise is that rhino poaching is now big business, in the league of drug smuggling, gun running and human trading. One is no longer talking about a couple of poachers tracking and shooting a rhino in a remote area. One is talking about organized gangs using helicopters, spies and GPS to go almost anywhere there are rhinos and get the horns. One small game park, the Krugersdorp Game Reserve, that used to pride itself on a small herd of rhinos, is only about half and hour’s drive from where I live in suburban Johannesburg. All the adults have now been poached. One youngster – probably spared until its horn has grown – remains and has been relocated to another more secure environment. In the latest attack, a helicopter flew in, the rhino was darted with a sedative drug used when transporting large wild animals, the horns were cut off with a chain saw, and the animal left to bleed to death. The whole thing probably took no more than fifteen minutes.
Horn with Medicine Box |
The Accused Arrive at Musina Magistrate's Court |
Is that the happy ending? Hardly. All the arrested are out on bail to the value of about two rhino horns. And if one ring is broken, another joins together. The stakes are too high.
What other options are there? One game reserve recruits paying visitors to help them dart their rhinos and cut off the horn – high enough so that there is no pain; it’s only hair after all. They accept that the rhinos are disadvantaged by the loss of their only weapon, they accept that their Big Five tourists will be disappointed by the look of their lopped rhinos. But they point out that some will still be safe and around when all the others may have gone.
Michael - Thursday
I don't think pieces like this can be posted too many times...looking forward to the update.
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