Rhino

The illegal wildlife trade, which includes lucrative markets for elephant ivory and rhino horns, is estimated to be worth up to $10 billion. Poachers have adopted technologies like night vision goggles, silenced weapons and even helicopters to find and kill some of the world's most threatened mammals. Elephants and rhinoceroses are killed to feed a demand for traditional Asian medicines and luxury products. It is estimated that 96 elephants are killed each day ( in excess of 35,000 per year) for their ivory in Africa. According to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) this has contributed to a 76% decline in the elephant population since 2002.

 South Africa recently revealed that over 1,000 rhino were killed for their horns in 2013. All to meet an insatiable demand from the Asian market who wrongly see rhino horn as an essential ingredient for Asian panaceas. Rhino horn is sold at around US$35,000 a kilo. There is no doubt that the increasing wealth of these emerging communities has fuelled this demand. The wider access these communities now have to the Internet could now be used to educate the mis-informed.

To cope with the menace of the greater sophistication of the poaching rings a variety of strategies are being pursued by conservationists in both Namibia and South Africa to curb this slaughter. 

Recently in Namibia drones have been introduced at a cost of about $20,000 each. Drones are equipped with camera's and are battery operated which means they are silent. They can fly for 90 minutes and live stream content which can be accessed by a computer or tablet from anywhere in the world. It is hoped that this initiative and others like it will enable conservationists to curb this thoughtless and unnecessary slaughter.

During our tour of the game reserves of iMfolozi, Hluhluwe and Kruger Park South Africa we had some wonderful rhino sightings. We learnt from the rangers that poaching is a curse on their efforts to manage the wildlife to the extent that many off duty rangers volunteer their time to undertake extra patrols to catch poachers. Last year dozens of poachers were caught!

In the iMfolozi game reserve there is a very informative rhino capture museum showing the work of the early efforts of rangers to re-locate rhino to different regions within Southern Africa.

The imposing sculpture at the Game Capture Centre