More Trouble with Rhinos

 Apologies for missing my post two weeks ago, and thanks to Stan for posting the previous rhino story for me. The internet was very shaky where I was; I suppose that's part of the fun of being there. But I'm sorry I missed all the Christmas and New Year fun on MIE at the time, although I've enjoyed catching up. I just love Jeff's poem!

Now here's the follow-up piece I was trying to post two weeks ago:

My White Christmas Rhino - Photo by Aron Frankental

Somewhat over a year ago, I was at my place in in the African bush watching elephants bathing in the river and writing about rhinos. I’m there again today and an elephant is busy demolishing a tree at the back of the bungalow.

It’s in the high nineties. Not much chance of a white Christmas unless it’s a white rhino. And white rhinos aren’t white anyway. The common name is a corruption of the Dutch word wijd which means wide, and the name comes from the wide mouth as opposed to the more pointy mouth of the so-called black rhino, which isn’t really black. Let’s move on before this gets too confusing.
The point is that there haven’t been any black rhinos here for quite a while. They used to occur in this area and the habitat is ideal for them. That’s the case for much of the so-called lowveld (low-lying bush country) of the north-east of South Africa.

Black or Hook-lipped Rhino

So as a conservation initiative the World Wild Life Fund has relocated 20 black rhinos from a breeding programme elsewhere in South Africa to a suitable location somewhere in the lowveld.  No one’s saying where.  It’s a big gamble because the animals are very valuable, and if they decide to wonder out of the game conservation area, they’ll be prey for poachers who can get big money for their horns.  But the motivation is to have an additional group develop in a good habitat, hopefully providing a kernel for a new black rhino population.  Wherever they are, they’ll be protected by electric fences, armed anti-poaching guards and high-tech security surveillance.

The threat to the survival of the African rhinos is nothing new.  In the sixties, when I lived in Kenya, the population of black rhinos was around 100,000.  They were fun to see in the bush, but nothing special.  Thirty years later the population had dropped to just 2,500, but now the numbers have doubled.  So things looked up but the numbers were still very low.

Rolling hills of Zululand

The white rhino story was even more dramatic.  The population crashed to only 50 a century ago and the species was hanging onto survival in the wild in only a few isolated spots.  A group of twenty were in (what was then) Natal on the eastern side of South Africa, and two areas - Hluhluwe and Umfolozi -became the first proclaimed game reserves in Africa in an attempt to save the species.  A few other spots did the same but with less success. I remember seeing one of the last of the northern race in Uganda in the early sixties. The race now exists only in captivity.   But thanks to the efforts at Umfolozi, the southern white rhino did amazingly well – the population has climbed to around 20,000.  Umfolozi now has nearly 2,000 - the carrying capacity of the area - and has resettled thousands across southern Africa.  You see them quite frequently in the Kruger National Park now and all of that is due to the commitment of the people at Umfolozi.

White or Square-lipped Rhino at Umfolozi

In my previous post, I naively hoped that a spate of arrests and convictions might stop the poaching in South Africa at least.  But the stakes are too high.  Recently allafrica.com reported a shoot out between Kruger National Park officials and five Mozambique soldiers, one of whom was killed and another injured.  Even our small game reserve has been attached by rhino poachers - a shoot out resulted in no dead rhinos, one dead poacher and - wait for it - one of our game guards in jail on a culpable homicide charge.
Conservation officials now believe that the poaching of rhinos for their horns has reached the “tipping point”.  That is the point in population dynamics at which the death rate exceeds the birth rate and the species starts to decline in numbers.  If the poaching continues at the same pace, you don’t have to be a mathematician to see that the species is on the way to extinction.

So what I want for Christmas is a sighting of healthy, free rhinos.  That makes it a white Christmas for me.  And then I want to be able to see them again next Christmas.

Michael - Thursday

PS. At least I got the first part of my wish - see the first picture.

The Trouble with Rhinos

Michael asked me to re-post this blog which first appeared in Sept 2010.  He wanted to update it, but since he is currently in the bush having trouble with the internet (and rhinos), he is unable to do so.  He promises to bring us up to date on the rhino issue when he extricates himself from the acacia's long thorns.  He reports, via drum, that he has been charged twice by elephants in the past few days - entirely without provocation.

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

 In total, more than 200 rhinos have been poached this year, more than double the figures for last year. Conservationists were at their wits end as to how to address this threat, which could easily drive the rhinos back to the verge of extinction from which they were rescued fifty years ago.



The Accused Arrive at Musina Magistrate's Court

 But the clues were there. For one thing, the economics don’t add up. Rhinos are sold at game auctions quite regularly because the White Rhino has been doing remarkably well, repopulating much of the Kruger National Park and the surrounding game reserves. You will pay between $20,000 and $40,000 for the animal. But the horn alone is worth $100,000 on the black market. Then there are the tranquilizing drugs. These are specialized and dangerous substances, certainly not available to members of the public. So where were they coming from? And the helicopters? People in the wildlife areas are now very alert to helicopters and report them whenever they’re seen. The police noticed that a helicopter with a similar description was seen in three of the areas where poaching took place. They managed to trace it to a small company. One of the directors was Sariette Groenewald. Her husband, Dawie Groenewald, owns a game farm on which 30 rhinos were found, all legitimately bought. Perhaps most shocking was the arrest of two vets in the swoop that followed. Such a hard and demanding profession. Why would you do it unless you care about animals? Obviously in this case the money was just too attractive. In all eleven people were arrested and charged on the 22nd of this month.

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