[imagesource:wikimedia]

Finally, some good news for rhinos after the government announced a marked decrease in rhino poaching following its dehorning program implemented in April this year.

Poaching incidents for the two months after the programme began went from 42 and 34 to 21 and 22 respectively, signalling a ‘significant drop’.

Environment minister Dion George attributed the lower numbers to the dehorning of rhino populations in the eastern KwaZulu-Natal province and specifically in Hluhluwe iMfolozi Park, where over 1,000 rhinos have been dehorned since April.

With the largest population of rhinos on the planet, South Africa has been hard hit by the demand for rhino horn in particularly Asian countries, where the horns are used in traditional medicine. Rhino horns are primarily made up of keratin, a protein also found in human hair and fingernails.

The Kruger National Park has been particularly hard hit by poaching, having lost 45 rhinos this year alone. The problem has become so bad that the park has introduced lie-detector tests for new employees to prevent poachers from teaming up with rangers and employees to get at the rhinos.

In addition to the dehorning programme, South Africa also implemented a novel approach by injecting radioactive materials into the horns of these animals to curb the threat of poaching. The radioactive material is harmless to the animal but makes the horn unusable for poachers. One can only hope the illicit horn trade dries up after the people using it find their penis falling off instead of getting bigger.

South Africa currently has a population of 2,065 black and 13,991 white rhinos, with one rhino killed for its horn every day.

[source:reuters]