Ancestor of a west african black rhinoceros12/31/2023 ![]() However, rhinos on ‘rhino farms’ bear very little resemblance, behaviourally, to wild animals, as this eye-witness report observes: I am all in favour of people making money from wildlife in ways that are compatible with the maintenance of truly wild populations. However, it cannot be ignored that most of them have close links to the private landowners who stand to gain from their proposals. Many of the continent’s more than 20,000 animals are held on private game reserves in South Africa, whose owners stand to make millions if the law is changed to allow them to sell their stocks of rhino horn.Įconomists in favour or legalising the trade put forward sophisticated arguments. These proposals centre on the southern white rhino. The idea is claimed to be ‘sustainable’ because a rhino horn will regrow after it has been ‘harvested’. They propose flooding the market with ‘legal’ rhino horn, thereby reducing the price and the incentive for poaching. A group of economists has suggested an alternative approach. Policies to control poaching by prohibiting trade in rhino horn have been ineffective in the face of astronomical prices fuelled by booming demand from Southeast Asia. As a ‘medicinal’ product, ground rhino horn is worth more than its weight in gold despite research showing that, at most, it has mild fever reducing properties, and is certainly less effective than aspirin. Photograph: Ben Curtis/AP Bad idea 3: Legalise trade in ‘farmed’ rhino hornsĪlongside habitat destruction, poaching is the principal cause of declining rhino populations. At the time the photo was taken Najin was one of six northern white rhinos left on earth. Keeper Mohamed Doyo leans over to pat female northern white rhino Najin in her pen at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya on 1 December 2014. ![]() If, against all the odds, an animal created in this way survived, it would be condemned to life as a freak show spectacle. There is no chance that scientists could recreate the genetic variation necessary to sustain a viable wild population. In my view this would be a scandalous waste of money that would be better spent on genuine conservation initiatives. Scientists are now fantasizing about high-tech solutions to ‘save’ the species using Jurassic Park style cloning techniques. The species is functionally extinct, with just a handful of ageing individuals left in zoos. Sadly it is too late to use this approach to save the northern white rhino. Some black rhinos have been released back to secret places in the wild, where they are apparently doing very well. Kenya’s rhinos which had declined to fewer than 400 now number over 1,000, including 80% of the world population of the eastern black rhino ( Dicerus bicornis michaeli). Wildlife authorities invested heavily in military protection and intelligence, and scientifically managed the population densities and genetics to maximise breeding. In the 1980’s Kenya took a radical decision to take all wild rhinos out of the wild and keep them in heavily fenced sanctuaries. This was achieved by strictly protecting rhinos on reserves and moving surplus populations to other suitable sites. The recovery of the southern white rhino ( Ceratotherium simum cottoni) in southern Africa from a handful of individuals at the end of the 19th century to the current population of more than 20,000 is one of wildlife conservation’s great success stories. Not a single baby rhino was born and, by the end of the century, almost all the captured animals had died of disease.Įvidence suggests population management can aid recovery of threatened rhino species, but only if it is combined with intensive protection of natural breeding habitats-something that is not happening in Southeast Asia. ![]() Despite the lack of any evidence that the species could be bred successfully in captivity, 40 animals-a significant proportion of the entire wild population-were captured and moved to zoos and reserves. In the 1980s, in response to the threatened extinction of the Sumatran rhino, conservationists took the decision to initiate a captive breeding programme. Here is a list of four ‘bad ideas’ to save rhinos: Bad idea 1: Captive breeding of animals that won’t breed in captivity In the face of failed policies to conserve the natural habitats that harbour wildlife, some still hope that human ingenuity can save their inhabitants from extinction. Wildlife extinction is a consequence of policy failure. How could this have happened? Each individual extinction has its own story, but the underlying reason is that we, humans, have let it happen. Now they are so rare that we can give them all names. ![]() When I was young, there were parts of Kenya where it was dangerous to walk because you might be attacked by rhinos. I find it shocking that the collapse of rhino populations has happened in my lifetime. ![]()
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