By Roxanne Reid
‘The carcass of the poached rhino was about a week old when the Vietnamese delegation saw it in a South African wildlife park. There was a strong smell of rot, and animals had scavenged most of the meat. Rangers found the bullet that killed it by scouring the ground with a metal detector. The rhino horn was gone, hacked off its snout.’
‘The carcass of the poached rhino was about a week old when the Vietnamese delegation saw it in a South African wildlife park. There was a strong smell of rot, and animals had scavenged most of the meat. Rangers found the bullet that killed it by scouring the ground with a metal detector. The rhino horn was gone, hacked off its snout.’
So begins a 17 September account by Christopher Torchia of Associated Press. This, he reports, is what happened when a Vietnamese police constable, a celebrity, a politician and an environmental activist paid a visit to the Kruger National Park as part of the Rhinose Foundation's campaign of raising awareness in Vietnam about the rhino poaching crisis.
Rhino calves are dependent on their mothers for three years
Among them was comedian Xuan Bac, who plans to use his strong social media presence to spread the message back home in Vietnam, which is the world's biggest consumer of rhino horn.
‘I saw many beautiful things in Kruger but this makes me very sad. We must do something about rhino poaching,’ he said.
‘I saw many beautiful things in Kruger but this makes me very sad. We must do something about rhino poaching,’ he said.
Wide-lipped rhinos (Photo: JoeDsilva)
This is one of the most positive campaigns I’ve seen to fight rhino poaching by cutting it off at the source.
Until the Vietnamese understand that rhino horn is just keratin, like our hair and nails, and has no medicinal properties that can cure diseases like cancer, rhino poaching in Africa and elsewhere will continue.
The mindset of thinking it's a 'cool' thing to own a rhino horn to show you 'have arrived' also needs to be broken because it comes at the expense of a 50-million-year old species.
I don’t entirely blame the poachers on the ground – they’re just the small fish who are often the fall-guys, the ones who need money to feed their families.
I blame the big wigs who organise the trade on a Mafia-like scale. I blame corrupt government officials. I blame those wildlife rangers and vets who are greedy and unethical. And mostly I blame end consumers in the East for the ignorance that creates the market for rhino horn in the first place.
Until the Vietnamese understand that rhino horn is just keratin, like our hair and nails, and has no medicinal properties that can cure diseases like cancer, rhino poaching in Africa and elsewhere will continue.
The mindset of thinking it's a 'cool' thing to own a rhino horn to show you 'have arrived' also needs to be broken because it comes at the expense of a 50-million-year old species.
I don’t entirely blame the poachers on the ground – they’re just the small fish who are often the fall-guys, the ones who need money to feed their families.
I blame the big wigs who organise the trade on a Mafia-like scale. I blame corrupt government officials. I blame those wildlife rangers and vets who are greedy and unethical. And mostly I blame end consumers in the East for the ignorance that creates the market for rhino horn in the first place.
How tragic if the only rhinos our grandchildren will see are in a museum, like this one in the Rhino Hall at Berg-en-Dal, Kruger National Park ...
... or the dried out skulls of prehistoric creatures that became extinct on our watch
By 13 September this year, poachers had killed 635 rhinos in South Africa and hacked out their horns. That’s not far behind the 668 that were killed in the whole of 2012, and there are still three months of this year left.
Compare this to only 7 rhinos lost to poaching in 2000 and 22 a decade ago in 2003, and it’s obvious that the situation has got badly out of hand.
Parks staff are doing the best they can, supported by the defence force and many organisations raising money to fund the battle. We’ve also seen harsher sentences for convicted poachers.
But corruption and greed are strong motivators that will take a lot of beating.
Compare this to only 7 rhinos lost to poaching in 2000 and 22 a decade ago in 2003, and it’s obvious that the situation has got badly out of hand.
Parks staff are doing the best they can, supported by the defence force and many organisations raising money to fund the battle. We’ve also seen harsher sentences for convicted poachers.
But corruption and greed are strong motivators that will take a lot of beating.
This is how rhinos should be - left alone in the wild (Photo: RayMorris1)
That’s why I think education – not so much of South Africans, but of end consumers in the East, particularly Vietnam – is a big step forward. I hope we see more of it in future, until this scourge is stopped.
What do you think of this education campaign? Will it help solve the rhino poaching crisis or not? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Copyright © Roxanne Reid - No words or photographs on this site may be used without permission from roxannereid.co.za
What do you think of this education campaign? Will it help solve the rhino poaching crisis or not? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Copyright © Roxanne Reid - No words or photographs on this site may be used without permission from roxannereid.co.za
