Last of the black rhinos lose their horns to survive
The Sunday Times
16 August 1992
For more than 2m years, the black rhinoceros has used its great horn to dig for minerals, spar for territory and defend its young. No more. In Zimbabwe, its most important stronghold, every rhino is about to have its horn sawn off.
The ú425,000 initiative, one of the boldest in conservation history, is a last gamble to save a species in imminent danger of collapse after a century of decline and a savage outburst of poaching.
Thirty animals have already been pursued by helicopter, tranquillised by darts and "dehorned" by veterinary surgeons working with the aid of spotter planes and ground trackers. Hundreds more will endure the same ignominy over the next three months.
Dick Pitman, chairman of the Zambezi Society, which is helping to fund the operation, said yesterday that the rhinos were being watched for any ill effects, but none appeared to have suffered. "The situation is so serious that we just said we must dehorn them and to hell with the biological impact," he said.
Zimbabwe's Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management has acted on evidence that poachers may have slaughtered all but 400 of the country's black rhino population, which was estimated at 2,000 last year. Details of the holocaust are still emerging from surveys in which carcasses have been discovered in many protected areas once considered safe havens. In the Matusadona national park, where 150 animals were counted two years ago, only 17 remain.
To conservationists in the field, responsible for spending money raised by celebrities such as Chris de Burgh and Placido Domingo, the results are a disaster. If they cannot save an animal that attracts millions of dollars in donations, they warn, the prospects are bleak for many other less publicised species. "It is tragic," said Dr Simon Lyster, a senior conservationist with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), which last week pledged ú160,000 in emergency aid for the black rhino. "When there is so much money to be made from such an easy target, it doesn't stand a chance."
Rhino horn is smuggled to Yemen to be carved into dagger handles, and to Taiwan where it is ground down for a medicine to treat fever. In Hong Kong it is much sought after as an aphrodisiac. It fetches ú3,350 a kilo, and prices are soaring. Traffic, a body that monitors trade in wildlife products, believes some dealers are stockpiling horn in the hope that values will rise further as the animal hurtles towards extinction.
If Zimbabwe's stock is exhausted, experts believe the poachers will turn on an estimated 1,500 rhinos in South Africa, Namibia and Kenya.
Government officials in Harare warn that the success of the poachers, who have stepped up their activities in spite of threats to shoot them on sight is partly the result of an international ban on trading in rhino horn. Until it can sell its own stockpiles, it says, it will not be able to afford adequate patrols in national parks. Environmentalists counter that setting up a legal trade in horn would increase the market and stimulate poaching. They argue that the government should plough more money from tourism into conservation or risk losing the animals which attract the visitors.
The alarming speed of the rhinos' decline has accentuated fears for a growing number of African species threatened by drought, war and a relentless growth in human populations that has brought people increasingly into conflict with animals. In Zambia, deforestation has wiped out its wild chimpanzees. A reserve has been set up for chimps fleeing tree-felling in neighbouring Zaire.
Rwanda's mountain gorillas, numbering fewer than 300, are clinging precariously to the upper slopes of the Virunga volcanoes after nearly two years of fighting between government and rebels.
War in Chad has hit the already highly endangered scimitar horned oryx, with reports that it is being shot for meat.
Even where peace prevails, many national parks set up to provide a refuge for wildlife in the battle against extinction are regularly invaded by people searching for fuel, grazing cattle and poaching game. Clive Wicks, a WWF official who advises governments on setting up new parks, said it was vital to give people living around them a financial stake in their success.
A growing number of conservationists favour allowing tourists to shoot rare animals in national parks if the fees, often running to thousands of dollars, can be used to fund vital projects.
Peter Jackson, the World Conservation Union's leading adviser on big cats, said the introduction of such safaris in Namibia had helped persuade farmers to tolerate cheetahs on their land rather than shoot them as pests. "Most of us have reluctantly come to the view that it may be necessary to sacrifice individuals for the benefit of the whole species, no matter how much we hate to see the animals we are most interested in being killed," he said.
