Save the rhino!
In the last 50 years the total rhino population in Africa has been reduced by 96% because of poaching. If the poaching and the increasing demand for rhino horn doesn’t stop, rhinos will not survive the next 50 years.
While walking through the countryside, he is always accompanied by four armed bodyguards. They watch over him 24 hours a day and protect him from possible dangers. Most of the time they stay hidden to give him the feeling that he is completely normal. But he is not. He is special. Even though most of the time he doesn’t realise it and behaves just like everyone else.
One might expect that I am talking about an important politician or a celebrity. But the subject of my story is neither a politician nor a celebrity, at least not a celebrity in the common sense: it’s Sudan, a 42 years old white rhino living in a conservation camp in Kenya. Why does a rhino — a massive animal with up to 3.000 kg bodyweight — need round-the-clock supervision and protection? Because Sudan is the last known male northern white rhino left in the entire world.
Source: http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150416122731-02-sudan-white-rhino-0416-exlarge-169.jpg
Rhinos are being threatened with extinction because they fall victim to poachers who hunt them for their horns. In Africa there are two different kinds of rhinos: the white rhino and the black rhino. The northern white rhino is a subspecies of the white rhino and there are currently three northern white rhinos left in the entire world with Sudan being the only male one. 5.055 black rhinos live in Africa in total, they are classified as critically endangered. With 20.405 existing white rhinos this species is classified as near threatened.
Source: https://www.savetherhino.org/assets/0002/0207/RhinoMapUpdated_large.jpg
Most of the African rhinos live in South Africa. The country thus plays an important role for the rhino conservation. A figure compiled by the South African Department of Environmental Affairs illustrates the dramatic rise of rhinos killed by poachers in the last years. It shows that the numbers of poached rhinos surged in 2008. In this year 83 animals were killed compared to 13 in 2007. Since then the numbers have risen to an alarming count of 1.215 poached rhinos last year. That is equivalent to one rhino every eight hours. The total rhino population in Africa has been reduced by 96% in the last 50 years.
Source: https://www.savetherhino.org/assets/0001/8266/RhinoPoachingGraph2015_C_SRI_medium.jpg
Rhinos are poached for their horns, which are highly demanded in Asian countries. A rhino horn is worth up to $5,550 an ounce on the black market. According to the traditional Chinese medicine it can treat fever, rheumatism and gout, and cures for example snakebites, hallucinations, food poisoning and ‘devil possession’. Recently the demand for rhino horn increased dramatically in Vietnam, because it is believed that a powder made of the horn can cure a hangover. The horns consist of keratin — basically gelatinous hair — and have no medical effect. In Asia a rhino horn is also a status symbol which shows success and wealth. Because of the high demand for rhino horn its value increases and at the same time the poaching numbers do.
A rhino can normally easily survive without its horn. The biggest problem about the poaching is the poaching method. The majority of the poachers are poor and have either no or only basic weapons. If they have weapons, they shoot the rhino and remove the horn with a saw. The injury caused by the shot often doesn’t kill the animal straight away but in a painful and slow process. If the poachers don’t have weapons, they install snares on the ground to catch the rhino or to injure its legs to slow it down. These snares are often made out of the simplest materials, such as barbed wire, which cause serious injuries to the rhino. If a rhino is caught in a trap the poachers remove the horn as soon as the rhino is too weak to fight them and leave it in the snare until it starves. Sometime a rhino manages to release itself but then it mostly dies because of its injuries.
To save the remaining rhinos South Africa and other African countries fight against poaching with several methods. The main approach is to stop the poaching directly on site, a second approach is to launch information campaigns in Asian to stop the demand for rhino horns.
The former includes regular anti-poaching walks organised by field guides or rangers in African national parks to spot and destroy snares and to hunt poachers. Since a few years the rangers are often supported by heavy-armed soldiers and professional anti-poaching units like the Black Mambas, because the encounters with the poachers are increasingly dangerous. Many poachers own arms and shoot at the rangers without hesitation. In addition to the walks, many reserves and national parks install CCTV to monitor the fences and gates. So far anti-poaching walks are a successful method, but they have only a short-time effect because poachers can easily install new traps. Furthermore it is impossible to do these patrols throughout the country.
Another method is to dehorn the rhinos to protect them from poaching. Without a horn they are not valuable for the poachers. To remove a rhino’s horn, the animal is anaesthetised and its eyes and ears are covered. The horn is then cut off with a chainsaw and the stump is trimmed and smoothed to prevent cracking. The process is painless for the rhino, and the dehorning is normally done in the reserve or national park, so that the animal doesn’t need to be moved to a different environment. Namibia started this method in the 1990s and it was successful: not a single dehorned rhino was killed in Namibia, and in other African countries the animals without horn had a 30% higher chance of surviving. But even though the dehorning protects the rhino from active poaching, it doesn’t prevent it from getting caught in a trap. This method can therefore only be successful if it is combined with anti-poaching walks and monitoring throughout the parks and reserves. Unfortunately the dehorning is an extensive and costly process and can therefore only be performed in small parts of Africa. Furthermore there are no profound studies about the impact of the dehorning on the rhino’s life. Rhinos use their horns to defend their territory, to dig for water and to protect themselves and their calves, but it is not clear to what extend they actually need them. Nevertheless the dehorning might have a negative impact on the rhino’s life and restrict its natural behaviour.
More recent approaches include poisoning the horns in order to kill or seriously harm the consumer. Therefor small holes are drilled in the horns through which the poison is injected. As the horns have no direct connection with the rhino’s bloodstream, it doesn’t harm the rhino itself. In addition to poisoning the horns, they were also dyed with a bright colour in order to show a potential poacher that a horn was poisoned and is therefore no use for him. This method is ethically controversial, because it has the possible effect of poisoning innocent people in a different country. Apart from the moral issue it turned out that the poisoning did not stop the poachers from killing rhinos because they were still able to sell the poisoned horns to middlemen. Furthermore the poison needs to be reinjected every few years. It is hence an expensive method.
There were also thoughts about implanting microchips in the horns to locate the poachers, about transferring rhinos from South Africa to Botswana, which is the country with the lowest poaching rate, and about satisfying the rhino horn market with synthetic horns. But none of these methods were executed large-scale.
Anti-poaching walks, dehorning rhinos and poisoning the horns are methods that manage to save individual rhinos, but they are too extensive and costly to be effectively used throughout the whole world.
The second approach focuses on stopping the demand for rhino horn in Asia. The Human Society International started a campaign which included informative advertisement and talks in kindergartens, schools and universities. This approach is very promising but the effect of the campaigns will only be visible in a couple of years.
Rhinos are peaceful animals, which eat grass and bushes, normally don’t harm humans or other animals and prefer to be left alone. They look big and strong but they are helpless against poachers and their weapons and snares. Last year every eight hours a rhino in South Africa was killed. The numbers of poached rhinos increase inexorably and even though a lot is already done to stop the killings, much more needs to be done to save the rhinos from extinction. Otherwise by the time a child born today leaves school, rhinos will have disappeared from every part of Africa.
