Rhinos In The Wild

Threats facing the rhino


Threats facing the rhino


ILLEGAL HUNTING FOR ORIENTAL MEDICINE

or thousands of years, rhino horn has been used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat a wide range of illnesses, from reducing fevers and calming convulsions to stopping nosebleeds and preventing strokes. It is not prescribed as an aphrodisiac as was widely rumoured. Traditional Oriental medicine made from rhino horn is processed into pills, tablets, herbal treatments, and tonics and sold worldwide with the main users in China, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Korea, and Hong Kong, or wherever Asian communities are found including the USA and Europe.

In fact, recent TRAFFIC investigations in the United Kingdom and the USA revealed that illegal products claiming to contain rhino horn are being sold there. CITES data help to frame the dimensions of this global phenomenon. From 1990 to 1992, at least 100,000 items of rhino products were recorded in trade, virtually all of which were reported by, and exported from, China. Overall, some 30 countries and territories were export destinations for goods containing rhino derivatives, most of which were made from the horns of African rhinos.

Meanwhile, traditional end-use markets remain active. In 1993, South Korea acceded to CITES, and during that same year an unprecedented crackdown commenced to enforce a ban on domestic trade in rhino horn and its derivatives. Although police and government agents inspected more than 12,000 shops and identified only a single offender, in late 1993, a team of TRAFFIC investigators found that 68 out of 149 Oriental medicine shops and clinics in the country's five major cities claimed to use rhino horn as a key ingredient in Woo Hwang Chung Shim Won balls, a medicine commonly used throughout Korea for a variety of ailments. TRAFFIC estimates that the consumption of rhino horn could be as high as 300kg per year, which could account for the deaths of more than 100 African rhinos.

In 1993, China and Taiwan also banned the sale of rhino horn and its use in traditional medicine, but TRAFFIC investigations have re-corded the continued availability of rhino horn medicines. Taiwan required registration of privately held rhino horn stocks in 1990, but as of September 1994 there were still no penalties for failure to register. In August 1994, 12 rhino horns, allegedly imported from Malaysia in March 1994, were seized in Taiwan. That same month the US Government (under the Pelly Amendment) took steps to impose limited trade sanctions on Taiwan for its failure to enforce the illegal rhino horn trade. How effective the trade bans will be remains to be seen. WWF and TRAFFIC are continuing to monitor the enforcement and effectiveness of the trade bans and is seeking replacement remedies based on cures found in, or associated with, traditional Chinese medicine.



DAGGER HANDLES FOR THE MIDDLE EAST

In the late 1970s, a significant decline in Kenya's rhinos attracted attention and there was evidence of heavy poaching. The reason for the high level of poaching was not at first recognized. The revelation came when Esmond Bradley Martin began investigating trade from East African ports.

His research revealed that large shipments of rhino horns were going to North Yemen. He found that the horn was being used for the decorative handles of daggers, called jambiyyas, worn by Northern Yemeni men. It turned out that many young North Yemenis had been enriched by work in Saudi Arabia during the oil boom and returned home wealthy enough to buy the costly daggers, contributing to the slaughter of Africa's rhinos. Because of the growing rarity of Asian rhinos, pharmacists in China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and some other parts of eastern Asia had been purchasing large quantities of horn, obtained from official government auctions that were held in Mombasa, and through Indian merchants who had trading posts throughout East Africa. They now found that Yemeni demand was forcing up prices, which they had to match in order to maintain their supplies. As a result, rhino horn sold in 1979 for 21 times as much as in 1971.

But by 1993, under 100 kilos of rhino horn were im-ported into Yemen, compared with 2,000 kilos annually in the 1980s. Today, in Yemen, less than one dagger horn out of every 1,000 is made out of rhino horn. Thanks to WWF's efforts, the practice has been reduced dramatically , but this still represents an unacceptable number of rhino each year. WWF is strongly pressurizing the Yemen government to join CITES as soon as its political situation stabilizes.



WEAK LAW ENFORCEMENT AND MIDDLEMEN

During the 1970s, Kenya lost 90 per cent of its black rhinos to poaching gangs. Illegal killing of rhinos swept south, wiping out population after population in Tanzania, Mozambique, and Zambia before crossing the Zambezi a decade later to attack the black rhino's last great stronghold in Zimbabwe. The efforts of wildlife departments, backed by international aid, have been unable to stem the massacre,often because of mismanagement and corruption. The highest protection in international law, provided by CITES, has been ineffective because it has seldom been enforced. Most wildlife departments in Africa have experienced budget cuts, and with the exception of South Africa and Namibia, are seriously underfunded, often with badly paid and inadequately trained staff.

To deprive the middlemen of their ill-gotten profit, rhinos have been translocated to specially-protected reserves. In Zimbabwe, Namibia, and Swaziland, wildlife managers have cut off some of their rhinos' horns to make them unattractive to poachers. However, dehorned rhinos have still been killed, mainly in Zimbabwe. This may have been because the horns had regrown, making it economically worthwhile to kill them. Worse yet, some people killed the rhinos out of sheer frustration and spite.

During 1992 and 1993 in South Africa, the Endangered Species Protection Unit of the South African Police seized 128 white rhino horns. The anti-poaching campaign in South Africa seems to be well-controlled at present, but Zimbab-we's rhinos are still declining because of demand for rhino products for use in traditional Oriental medicine.

In Asia, poachers continued to pursue the Sumatran rhino, hindered to some extent by their scattered numbers in dense forest habitat. The greater one-horned rhino, concentrated primarily in the swamps of Kaziranga National Park in north-east India and Nepal's Royal Chitwan National, has received strong protection and has significantly increased in numbers. However, it has remained vulnerable and there have been considerable losses to poachers. The rhino's use of regular trails makes their capture possible in concealed pits. Recently, poachers have even tapped power lines crossing some Indian reserves and set out wires to electrocute passing rhinos. However, since 1986, in Nepal and India, most of the rhinos killed have been shot.



IMPACT OF CATASTROPHES

Small isolated populations of rhinos are vulnerable to natural disasters such as drought, floods, fires, and hurricanes. In Indonesia, a virus killed five rhinos in Indonesia's Ujung Kulon National Park raising fears that an epidemic could wipe out a small rhino population, especially where in-breeding has reduced genetic variability. Such an epidemic could be catastrophic for Vietnam's population of 10 to 15 Javan rhinos.



THE GENETIC THREAT

Continued in-breeding between domestic animals is known to lead to genetic deterioration. Small populations of wild animals face the same risk. If a population drops below 100 breeding individuals, as is the case with most surviving rhino populations, there can be a loss of genetic material through random events, such as too few females being born; or floods, fires, disease or poaching may reduce the number of reproductive females or males. Loss of reproductive capacity may follow so that the population begins to grow smaller and smaller, and continues to lose genetic variability until it becomes demographically unstable. By then, such a population is virtually doomed because it enters an "extinction vortex": small size leads to increased in-breeding, leading to lower birthrate and survival, and thence to reduced population growth rate in a continuing cycle until the population dies out.

Although no signs of ill effects have so far been noted in small rhino populations, the danger remains. Precautionary steps are necessary because genetic deterioration may not be observed until it is too late. Specialists in small-population biology recommend moving at least one male per generation between populations (which may be wild or captive) to maintain genetic variability. This is why breeding groups of rhinos in zoos are being established and managed as a reserve against deterioration or extinction in the wild.




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Copyright 1996, The World Wide Fund For Nature