Rhino wars

nanoboy

nanoboy

Well-Known Member
Interesting article on the status of rhino poaching in Africa:

Rhino Wars - Pictures, More From National Geographic Magazine

Check out the gallery too. There is an especially poignant photo of a wealthy Vietnamese woman grinding rhino horn.

A couple points of interest:

1. I hope that this was mentioned in the article or captions (admittedly, I read the article in my hard-copy magazine), but they said that few studies were done on the medicinal value of rhino horns, and that these studies were inconclusive. I thought the horns were made of keratin? Should I start eating my old toe-nail clippings?

2. What are your thoughts on sustainably farming rhinos for their horns? He made a great comment that Westerners think it is ok to kill and mount the head of a rhino, but it's wrong to use the horn for Eastern medicine.
 
1. Horns are made of keratin (basically just compacted hair). Yes, you should start eating your own toe-nail clippings. If you don't get any serious diseases, then there is conclusive proof of the medicinal value of toe-nails.

2a. Farming won't work - demand is too great and rhinos reproduce and grow horns too slowly.

2b. None of my Westerner friends think it's OK to kill and mount a rhino head.
 
Was it the same article, where they showed a map of Europe with dots illustrating museums and other collection, from where mounted rhino heads and horns were stolen? Ridiculous, isn´t it?

By allowing farming or other "sustainable" harvesting of horns, you would be basically admitting, that there is a need for it - implying, that the medicine might work. That doesn´t make any sense, but we live in such a politically correct world.... Everyone is afraid to attack something that has the word "tradition" in it. Do tiger farms help in tiger conservation? I don´t think so, they´re just fueling the trade in tiger parts, making it "more ok".

The only solution is education. Discredit TCM once and for all
and hope, that the next generation will believe in modern medicine, not magic...
 
Stefka said:
Was it the same article, where they showed a map of Europe with dots illustrating museums and other collection, from where mounted rhino heads and horns were stolen? Ridiculous, isn´t it?

By allowing farming or other "sustainable" harvesting of horns, you would be basically admitting, that there is a need for it - implying, that the medicine might work. That doesn´t make any sense, but we live in such a politically correct world.... Everyone is afraid to attack something that has the word "tradition" in it. Do tiger farms help in tiger conservation? I don´t think so, they´re just fueling the trade in tiger parts, making it "more ok".

The only solution is education. Discredit TCM once and for all
and hope, that the next generation will believe in modern medicine, not magic...
Click to expand...

That's the same article.

The article says that the research on the medicinal value of rhino horn has been inconclusive. That suggests that it may indeed have beneficial properties. So for starters, we need peer-reviewed research on the topic.

If it is found to have medicinal properties, then farming rhinos becomes viable whilst the big drug companies try to isolate the active ingredient and produce a synthetic replacement for rhino horn.

If it is found to have the same medicinal value as old toenail clippings, then let's shout it to the heavens and convince South East Asians that they are being conned.

I would not discount traditional medicine of any culture, because so many of our modern, Western drugs is derived from potions concocted by medicine-men in 'primitive cultures' whose peer-review is the death or healing of a tribesman.

Remember, a dying man is willing to try anything that may give him even a 1% chance of recovery. So research, hand in hand with education (as you pointed out) is probably the only way forward.
 
devilfish said:
Thanks for this nanoboy! What a great little piece. I like how they addressed rhino farming, and the news of potential breeding activity in Ol Pejeta slipped in at the end!
Click to expand...

No problem!

I thought only Aussies had access to the site though.
 
Bangor University Museum horn was a target

Many years ago I went to Bangor University to study biology and found the museum there very interesting. A black rhino head was mounted on a plinth and was hanging on the wall, not the universities best choice of wall hangings.
Due to being involved in conservation and at the time keeping in close contact with a lot of people I was horriefied to find that even the university horn was the target for eastern medicine makers.
Testing the hair is a good idea. If it does indeed hold healing powers then the rhino surely has a financial value in terms of it being needed in the future. at least so that scientists can take samples and create a synthetic replacement.
The question then is, does the rhino hold any further financial value? I say this as it seems that humans can only see the need to keep something if there is a finacial insentive. A sad case but inevitable. Perhaps the answer is to find a financial insentive in keeping and then enhancing all wildlife and their habitats.
Nick
 
As in most cases of wild animal usage / cropping there has never been any good example of a sustainable animal cropping programme being profitable ... FULL STOP. No matter what most Southern African nations would wish you to believe ...

Name: Zimbabwe, South Africa ... to a lesser extent Botswana and Zambia. Most of these countries in the end seem to be losing their wildlife attributes to a hunting hungry fraternity that is for the most part not in the least interested in sustainable usage principles. That is the main problem. Besides, the high demand and varocious poaching consumer markets in SE Asia and China are not helping either.

To my mind only ZERO TOLERANCE and SHOOT TO KILL policies will do + alternative income generation and development of a sustainable wildlife tourism industry with off shoot benefits for local communities ...
 
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