The rhino is certainly one of the most endangered large mammals in Southern Africa and it is definitely threatened with extinction and yet the very people who should be saving it i.e. CITES and our nature conservation authorities are helping instead to push it to extinction.

The Rhino (uniquely amongst our large animals) grows its horn again if it is cut off, in other words you can cut it off with no ill effects to the Rhino and in two or three years time you can cut it off again. The Rhino lives for up to 40 years so why would you want to kill it at any stage during that 40 years but most Rhino in this country are killed long before they even reach the half way mark.

It is a fact that anyone who wants a permit to take a Rhino horn out of this country must kill the Rhino first. The only exception is if you export the live rhino with its horn intact. Either way this country loses a rhino which we can simply not afford as it is one of our most valuable natural resources. It has now been proven that when nature conservation stopped issuing permits to Vietnamese, poaching rocketed. Yet we have so much horn in state coffers and being carried on live rhinos in the private sector all of which could be used to reduce poaching without harm to the rhino!

It is a fact that the majority of rhino hunters in this country are pseudo hunters and they do not want to kill the animal, they only want the horn. But our regulations (national and international) force them to kill the animal to get a permit to export the horn.

The government and CITES could dramatically immediately reduce the poaching by legalizing the trade in the Rhino horn.

It is time we did something to stop this atrocious slaughter…we need your voice!

Thursday, December 9, 2010

LEGAL TRADE IN HORN – A VERY EMOTIONAL TOPIC:


It is unfortunate that the suggested legal trade in rhino horn receives such vehement emotional opposition without any factual or rational back-up and without one single realistic achievable alternative suggestion. It is, on the other hand, a statistical and historical fact that the dramatic increase in poaching is directly related to the moratorium on the legal trade in rhino horn coupled with government’s clamp down on permits to Eastern hunters. The simple, and ironically, very emotional question is this: “Why do we insist that our rhino MUST be slaughtered (legally or illegally) in order to supply an insatiable demand for horn when we could very easily supply the horn without killing one single animal?” We sincerely appeal to all to calm the emotions and to consider the facts. Our rhino are in dire need of a concerted, researched and well co-ordinated protection plan, not an emotional, irrational and uninformed outcry!  

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Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Rhino have a unique gift

Rhino have a unique gift to save themselves from this onslaught with a re-growing horn, yet we refuse to let them use it with our legislation and rules. If we do not do something now, our SA rhino will follow their cousins in the rest of Africa to an inevitable extinction. Dehorning regularly CAN save our rhino!
Get the word out there and prevent this disaster and help our rhino in their miserable plight.

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“Did you know these rhino facts?”

  • • Rhino are endangered and nearing extinction due to relentless hunting and poaching
  • • Rhino populations have declined by 90 percent since 1970
  • • Rhino are classified in 5 species all of which are endangered. We have two species in Africa – the Black rhino and White rhino
  • • Rhino horn is not a true horn and is made of thickly matted hair
  • • Rhino horn can be removed from the rhino with no ill effect to the animal if done professionally
  • • Rhino horn regrows to a substantial length with in four years
  • • Rhino horn can only be exported as a hunting (killed rhino) trophy
  • • Rhino horn stock piles exist that could be sold to support conservation