Lynne MacTavish, operations manager at a private wildlife reserve in South Africa, mourns the death of one of her rhinos at the hands of poachers in 2014.
Lynne MacTavish, operations manager at a private wildlife reserve in South Africa, mourns the death of one of her rhinos at the hands of poachers in 2014.
There's a war going on, and the good guys are losing. Throughout South Africa, men are invading wildlife preserves, killing rhinos and hacking off their horns while they are alive. If the rhino is pregnant, poachers may cut out the baby and take its tiny horn too.
Oftentimes, the poachers are hired locally and equipped by Asian crime syndicates, who have taken over the market for rhino horn since their sale was banned in 2008. The number of rhinos killed has skyrocketed: 83 in South Africa in 2008; 1,215 in 2014, 1,175 in 2015. Because the legal sale of horns is banned, the value has risen. Today, rhino horns are worth twice their weight in gold.
These syndicates smuggle the horns from South Africa to China and Vietnam. In those countries, the horns are either ground into powder and used in traditional medicine, or they are presented as a rare gift to celebrate a successful business deal.
Actually, rhino horn is made of keratin, just like your fingernails. It doesn't cure anything.
How do you stop this? Some groups are trying to educate the populations of China and Vietnam that the horns have no medicinal value. That will take many years, says Lynne MacTavish, who operates a private wildlife reserve in South Africa, and by the time demand is reduced Africa's remaining 20,000 white rhinos will be gone.
Trying to change traditions in Asia may not be enough anyway: If 99.9% of the populations of China and Vietnam could be convinced not to use rhino horn in any manner, the market for poachers would still be 1.5 million people.
There's a more effective way: dehorning, along with a government-regulated market for the sale of humanely removed horns. Dehorning consists of anesthetizing the rhino, and while it is unconscious, sawing off the horn.
Want to know more? Check out the illustrated dehorning process below or click "Links" at the top of the page.
In August 2018 Lynne MacTavish was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Science degree from the University of Brighton. In her acceptance speech, she described the incident that led to the photo at the top of this page.
From a helicopter, a veterinarian riding in a helicopter shoots the rhino with a tranquilizer dart.
The now sedated rhino is injected with an anesthetic by a second veterinarian.
The animal's eyes are covered with a cloth and ears plugged with cotton to protect them from the flying chips of horn as the horn is sawn off.
The cut edges are smoothed with a grinder. The removal is not painful, just as clipping your fingernails is not painful.
The finished product. Now the rhino has little value to the poachers (or killers and mutilators).
The rhino is injected with a drug that reverses the effect of the anesthetic. In a few minutes, the animal rises and walks away. The whole process takes about 10-15 minutes per rhino.
