Southern California (!) rhino horn smuggling ring busted up by USFWS

DavidBrown

DavidBrown

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
The US Fish and Wildlife Service has broken up a rhino horn smuggling ring active in Southern California. Rhinos haven't been native to North America for millions of years, but it seems like this horrible rhino poaching problem is now truly global.

How can rhino conservationists convince people in Southeast Asia that rhinos aren't the cure for cancer? A massive public service announcement campaign?

Federal raids a 'serious blow' to rhino trade - latimes.com
 
The March 2012 edition of National Geographic has an interesting article titled "Rhino Wars" that details the plight of rhinos worldwide. There is a man in South Africa named John Hume who has more than 700 white and black rhinos (the largest privately owned herds in the world) and he has been harvesting rhino horn for a decade. His theory is intriguing as he has proposed rhino farms that save horns and thus create a safe environment with an absence of poachers. The magazine also states that the most expensive prices for rhino horns can double the price of gold!
 
I find myself torn on this point. In many ways, I see the point of what Mr Hume suggests. History suggests the way to break smuggling rings is to render them uneconomic and to that end a legal, regulated trade is needed. The 18th century smugglers of tea,lace and spirits from France were put out of business not so much by customs officers as by import duties being reduced.

On the other hand,
  • Getting rhino horn from a live rhino is going to be a pretty labour intensive operation
  • There is evidence( from Zimbabwe I think) of de-horned rhino being killed, the sickening logic being that if rhino become extinct then the value of rhino horn goes up even more
  • How do you promote a trade that is based on a fallacy? Rhino horn does NOT have any medical benefits..

If manicure parlours and hairdressers across North America, Australasia and Europe could be formed into a co-operative to collect their waste we might end up with enough keratin to flood the market in rhino horn - which is after all made from the same substance...
 
IanRRobinson said:
If manicure parlours and hairdressers across North America, Australasia and Europe could be formed into a co-operative to collect their waste we might end up with enough keratin to flood the market in rhino horn - which is after all made from the same substance...
Click to expand...

Interesting. Does anybody know if 'rhino horn' could synthetically be developed and made so realistic that the market prices would tumble and demand decline, probably wishful thinking, but I would gladly donate my nail clippings to the cause.
 
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