On the back of the dreadful news that eight rhino carcasses were found in the Kruger National Park within the space of 24 hours the day before yesterday, a South African columnist and well respected journalist has asked whether we should be farming rhino.

The Beeld newspaper reported yesterday that four carcasses were found near Pretoriuskop rest camp, two were found close to Lower-Sabie, with another two being found in an area near Crocodile Bridge.

The carcasses were mostly fresh, and all had been shot within the past week.

Of the 448 rhinos killed last year, 252 of them were killed in the Kruger.

SANParks, with the help of the defense force, sprang a full-scale operation around the area between Pretoriuskop and Crocodile Bridge in the hope of tracking the poachers, but they’re probably long gone.

This morning, a poignant discourse emerged in a column that has appeared in the Daily Maverick. Ivo Vegter is asking a very serious and rational question.

Should we farm rhino? Here is an important extract from that column:

Many environmentalists and armchair liberals are of the view that “we” merely need to educate the backward Orientals about the lack of medicinal qualities of rhino horn. This is rich coming from a group that routinely advocates the use of unproven herbal remedies. It is also supremely condescending. Imagine the Chinese coming to Africa and telling us to stop using muti, or better yet, instructing wealthy elites about the superstition that homeopathy works. We’d tell them to mind their own business and sod off back to China, and rightly so. Even if the Vietnamese and Chinese are wrong about rhino horn, re-educating half a billion people is as tyrannical as it sounds. And even the communists failed at that.

A capitalistic approach to rhino horn farming is what is being suggested; after all, we farm abalone too. And Zoo’s are also still popular.

However, should we be reducing yet another animal that has been on the planet for much longer than us to a commodity? Or is it already just another animal commodity?

Essentially, it is for some, but not others.

There are of course two sides to this debate. The PharSide, a UK-based blog sums up the other side of the argument:

Whichever side of the fence you are on in the debate, clearly we are a long way from finding the right solution to the epidemic that is the trade in animals, especially endangered ones.

[Sources: Beeld, DailyMaverick, PharSide]