Poachers Kill Last Female Rhino For Its Horns
July 20th, 2010 - 5:23 pm ICT by Pen Men At WorkJuly 20, 2010 (Pen Men at Work): The wildlife experts in South Africa are extremely worried and have demanded urgent and immediate action against the poachers in the country.
The situation turned extremely grave on Wednesday when it was found that the poachers have left the last female rhino in a game reserve to bleed to death as they made away with its horns which were hacked away from the still alive rhino.
This occurred in one of the most popular reserves near the city of Johannesburg. Poaching has reached a new high and the chief game ranger, Japie Mostert of the Krugersdorp game reserve puts the figure at 136 rhino deaths already this year. The figure had been a little less at 129 last year. The Krugersdorp game reserve is a huge area covering 15,000 hectares in all.
The poachers had apparently worked in a gang, bringing down the nine year old female rhino with the aid of a tranquilizer gun from a helicopter. The calf has now been orphaned and taken away to another estate where it has been kept together with two other white rhinos which share an identical fate.
Wanda Mkutshulwa, the spokesperson for the South African National parks stated that the police need to be more involved in the matter. Poaching has reached an alarming proportion now and seems to be more and more like an organized crime racket. The various game reserve administrators do not have the ways or means of combating such organized groups of poachers effectively.
The rhino horn is composed of compressed fibers of keratin which is very similar to ordinary hairs and forms the basic ingredient of most Oriental medicines. Poaching is now rife in South Africa because the demand for the horns have soared. The people of Middle East also use ornamental horns as handles for their daggers.
The conservationists set the figure of the present rhino population of South Africa at 18,000. That is way below 65,000, the average number in the 1970s.
The ‘Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species’ or ‘Cites’ has praised the country of South Africa for taking appropriate action against the poachers. A Vietnamese man was jailed for a period of ten years after being caught trying to smuggle the rhino horns out of the country.
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Tags: alarming proportion, city of johannesburg, conservationists, game ranger, keratin, krugersdorp game reserve, men at work, mostert, organized crime, oriental medicines, pen men, poachers, population of south africa, rhino, rhino horn, rhino population, rhinos, tranquilizer gun, white rhinos, wildlife experts