The last 15 rhinoceroses have been shot by poachers in Mozambique allegedly with the help of the game rangers hired to protect the rhinoceroses. The rangers are believed to have used the tracking devices on the animals in the Mozambican part of Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park to help poachers locate the animals and cut off their horns.
These were the last of an estimated 300 animals that have been killed for their horns — largely for the Chinese and Asian markets. Some 30 rangers have been arrested.
On the other side of the border in South Africa, 180 have been killed just this year alone to feed the market for rhino horn.
The underpaid and obviously disloyal rangers in these countries now appear part of the problem rather than the solution. What is most striking is that the killing of the last 15 rhinos in the country occurred with the world watching. The Chinese and Asian buyers of these horns were undeterred as were those people buying these products despite international outcry and efforts.
There is no science supporting claims that rhino horn actually helps fevers and convulsions. Yet, these users of rhino horn represent a particularly brutal and disgusting version of the tragedy of the commons. Their insatiable desire for these Asian remedies continues to mount with scarcity. They simply do not care that they are killing off the species so long as they can get some for themselves.
Source: Telegraph
This is the attitude that has led to the Anthropogenic Sixth Mass Extinction of species.
Once again, we’re not even close to the level of species having gone extinct to be a mass extinction. The tragedy of species on the verge of extinction because of our actions is enough without the exaggeration.
The saddest thing of all? The horn grows back. You can just tranquilize the animal, cut it off and let it go, and you’ll have it again next year. You don’t have to kill it.
Cant someone make up some fake Rhino horn and sell it to those chumps? Put some poop on it.
I thnk that someone should arm the rhinos and shoot the guards.
Is this pirate territory in the Horn of Africa? We should condemn those who buy the horn as well. Big pharma would like a piece of the market and perhaps this is one situation where we should favor Big Pharma over the rino thing. Once you eat the horn it is Rhino in name only. Kind of like Rck Perry. RepubliCon in name but Nazi by game.
Until China and other Asian nations are made to pay a serious price for this market and African nations can get enough internal economic growth to not only want to stop the poaching but to have the means to do so, it’s only going to continue to get worse.
http://www.theurbanpolitico.com/2013/04/atrocity-in-africa-children-murdered-in.html
As a planet we’ve got to find a way to adjust to China’s growth without allowing China to strip mine the entire world for natural resources and animal life. It’s disgusting.
Deplorable. The punishments are not enough to stop this, it is stupidity all around, the demand, the looking the other way or help by officials. It is not going to be easy to change this.
Why is a story about Rhinos being shot a story but black men in Connecticut being enslaved by Connecticut Justice not a story???
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This is the attitude that has led to the Anthropogenic Sixth Mass Extinction of species.
Conversely, There are many rhino’s in Colombia thanks to Pablo Escobar. He loved animals and imported Rhino’s for his own private zoo. After his death, they were just released into the jungle. With no natural enemies in Colombia they have bred like rabbits and terrorize folks living in those remote areas.
Heartbreaking.
I agree Gene H. I am sure that they are all devotees of Ayn Rand, and Rand Paul would be proud.
“Just looking out for number one!” – Ayn Rand
Sounds like congress in action…..
The Chinese, as a nation and a culture, must be called out on this issue and denounced as barbaric savages for this brutal obsession. Their “science” must be confronted and proven as ignorant superstition. Our administration, either the President or the Secretary of State, should bring greater awareness to this tragic event by speaking out about it. Unless the Chinese are held accountable in a very high profile way and made to understand that much of the world views this practice and its results as shameful – unless they start to lose face – they will never end the slaughter.
Oh, and we need to stop buying shit made in China. (I know, good luck, but a hit in the pocketbook might gain some attention.)
John – dead on correct! The only thing that matters is this quarters results.
When it comes to a choice between money or extinction, money almost always wins, be it in Somalia or USA. Just ask the Eastern Elk, Stellar’s sea cow, Spectacled Cormorant, or the Southern Rocky Mountains Wolf, proud and relatively recent members of the North American animal extinction list.
They simply do not care that they are killing off the species so long as they can get some for themselves.
I can see now why they think corporations are people…they don’t mind killing off a species either….even if it’s ours….