The five species of rhinos who remain on earth are all a extinction riskat various levels of gravity depending on the single species. The first cause of death for these mammals is poaching: both the two African species and the three Asian are very sought after for their horn, which is used in different “recipes” of traditional medicine and which can be worth up to 40,000 euros per kilogram. A new study published on Science now demonstrates the effectiveness of a method of protection of rhinos who can look brutalbut he had a resounding success: cut the horn.
Hunter hunting. The study is part of a wider project, which cost more than 70 million dollars and focused on anti-branconing interventions in the P regionNational Arch Kruger (The largest natural reserve in South Africa, with an extension equal to that of Puglia) in the period between 2017 and 2021. Much of these funds went to traditional intervention methods: control of the territory with cameras and drones, use of helicopters and trace dogs …
Methods that worked, leading to the arrest of over 700 poachers, but which, say the data, have not had appreciable effects on the phenomenon of poaching in general: there are systemic conditions (the poverty of the local populations, the widespread corruption) that cause a constant “reproducing” of the phenomenon of poaching. Parallel to these traditional interventions, however, the project has carried out another experiment: that of Cut the horns to the rhinoceros.
Loan amputations. Over the course of five years, the team led by Tim Kuiper of Nelson Mandela University of Port Elizabeth, in South Africa, cut the horns of 2,284 specimens distributed in eight different reserves. The project cost 1% of the total funds invested, and led to one Reduction of poaching in reserves equal to 78%. In other words, removing their most precious “piece” to the rhinos, that is, the horn makes them less attractive to poachers.
Eye to the regrowth. There is not only good news, unfortunately. If it is true that the poaching has dropped where the rhinos have been amputated, it is also true that it has not completely disappeared, because the stumps also contain enough material to be sold. Not to mention that The horns recreaseand over the years the illegal hunting, almost disappeared after the first cuts, has increased again.
Certainly, however, a 78% drop is not to be underestimated, on the contrary: it is possible that we will be able to save the rhino only by depriving them of their most characteristic trait.
