What the average South African doesn’t know about rhinos is that they’re in danger of being wiped out if conservationists are unable to stem the poaching crisis currently experienced in Africa.
The tragic irony of the killings is that each animal dies needlessly so its horns can be hacked off, sometimes while the animal is still alive, and often leaving behind orphaned babies.
In what has been described as “a multimillion-dollar industry based on a myth and operated by organised crime syndicates”, horns are fast-tracked to Asia, in the erroneous belief that they contain aphrodisiac and healing properties.
Fact: Rhino horns are made of keratin, the substance that makes up our hair and nails. They do not offer curative or other properties.
Fact: Rhinos are being killed to perpetuate a myth that puts money in the pockets of ruthless criminals.
22 September 2011, marked World Rhino Day, a date nominated in 2010 by the World Wildlife Fund to raise awareness of the plight of the rhino.
As a South African, what have you done to prevent the Big Five from becoming the Big Four?
Read more about the topic and see what others are doing by visiting the sites below:
http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2011/03/28/africa-rhino-poaching-crisis/
http://www.iucn.org/fr/propos/union/secretariat/bureaux/paco/info_paco/?3526/Poaching-crisis-as-rhino-horn-demand-booms-in-Asia
http://www.iucn.org/about/work/programmes/species/about_ssc/sir_peter_scott_fund/psf_projects/psf_white_rhino_sa/
http://www.savetherhino.org
http://www.stoprhinopoaching.com
http://www.savingrhinos.org
http://www.rhinoconservation.org