Both sad and good rhino news
What a sad day. Colleague Livhuwani Mammburu and I went out to Gauteng’s Rhino & Lion Nature Reserve to watch vets insert a red dye, parasiticides and microchips into a rhino horn in a bid to make the horn less attractive to poachers. The rhino that was treated died.
If it wasn’t for the massive escalation in poaching, “Spencer” would not have died. When all is said and done, Spencer was lost to poaching.
At a cost of R15000 a rhino (less if more rhinos are treated simultaneously), the treatment — if you can call it that — is not a viable solution for SA’s total rhino population. SANParks does not have that kind of money, and my money’s on better patrolling rather than dyes and microchips.
The good rhino news this week is the news that Mozambique is “pondering” legislative changes that will elevate the crime of wildlife poaching to a category of offence that carries heavier sentencing than the current offence of “damage to property”.
This emerged after Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa and Mozambique’s Tourism Minister, Fernando Sumbana Jnr, held an urgent meeting in Pretoria on Monday.
World Wide Fund for Nature African rhino programme co-ordinator Joseph Okori says he hopes he sees “words translate into action” on this.
So, obviously he’s not holding his breath, then.
Still, much of the rhino poaching that saw a record 448 rhinos killed in SA last year has taken place in the Kruger National Park, which borders Mozambique. While it is a factor of proximity, it is reasonably safe to say that many rhino poachers are Mozambican.
However, let’s not forget the vets and rhino owners that are involved in the illegal trade, quite a number of them South African. These are not poverty-stricken people. (Not that I am condoning any poaching.)
Today’s exercise was sad from beginning to end. I felt immensely sad to see Spencer lying in the grass, under sedation. I was shocked to hear the animal had died.
Such a needless loss, and, as someone who commented on photos I posted on Facebook said, “and the real poachers probably having a good laugh, too”.
March 13th, 2012 at 9:50 am
This is a classic case of, “When bad things happen to good people.” Lorinda is fighting a good fight and is well respected among the Anti Poaching people. I too advocate patrolling and have a collection of trained men, ex-soldiers, that are willing to go. The sad thing is the private rhino owners are not prepared to pay a single cent towards this. In fact some even charge volunteers for the “privilege” of walking patrol.
A year ago I wrote a blog article on “How to end the Rhino Poaching.” It would work but no one seems to care enough.