Content note: This article contains graphic description of incidents of animal cruelty
Gun to your head, what’s the most valuable animal product on the planet? What would you say? Caviar? Wagyu beef? Pearls? All wrong.
More valuable than gold, platinum and even cocaine, it’s rhino horn: a mass of keratin (the same stuff as your hair is made of), which grows continuously from a plate at the front of the skull of all rhino species.
It seems hard to believe that such an innocuous material could be of any value to anything other than a rhino, and yet the belief in rhino horn as a miracle cure to all ailments and disease has existed for thousands of years.
In ancient Greece, it was even believed to be able to purify water. So, campaigns suggesting that educational strategies could stop the demand for rhino horn and prevent poaching is not only naïve, but arrogant. Arrogant to believe that a belief older than Christianity or Islam in its roots could be stopped with an ad campaign. To understand the value of rhino horn, and the reality of the daily struggle against poaching, you have to ignore the current status quo among campaigners that rhino horn is merely an African snake oil. It is so, so much more than that. And therein lies the struggle against extinction.
Earlier this year I visited a reserve in South Africa to study the wildlife, and had the experience of coming face to face with the Southern White rhino. It is truly humbling to see first-hand such a magnificent and terribly endangered animal. Up until that experience, I don’t think I have ever truly appreciated how vitally important the protection of our natural world is, or how soul crushingly violent, brutal and sadistic poaching actually is.
This is how a rhino is killed for its horn: First a team of poachers (commonly former child soldiers) break into a reserve carrying assault rifles. From there they track down a rhino, which – when within range – is peppered with bullets to bring it down. However, because the rhino is like a living tank, those bullets won’t kill it immediately. They just slow it down enough for the poachers to get closer. The poachers will then approach and draw out machetes.
At this point the rhino isn’t dead, and is still extremely powerful, so to stop it moving or running away the spinal cord is severed. This stops the animal struggling during the next terrifying stage. They will then proceed to hack the face of the animal off, burrowing right to the skull to ensure the entire horn down to the growth plate is removed (why leave anything behind when 1kg of horn can fetch up to $100,000?).
All this happens whilst the animal is alive. Worse still, calves attempting to defend their mothers have been caught up in this violence, often sustaining equally gruesome wounds. Mother and child left hacked apart and dying in the most agonising way imaginable.
This is the reality faced by anti-poaching units every single day.
Facing the poachers on the ground is extremely dangerous, and regularly witnessing the trauma of these animals places an immense emotional strain on those giving their lives to the cause. The anti-poaching unit I visited can’t even actively celebrate Christmas. The risk is so great, I am not allowed to name the reserve, the owners or the geographical location.
The problem extends far beyond the front-line: with something as valuable as rhino horn every level of authority is absolutely rife with corruption and black market collusion. Funding to confront this issue is scarce, and what little money there is must be poured back into fences, anti-poaching units, trained dogs, and vehicles to desperately try and protect these beautiful animals. This is so cripplingly expensive that the majority of reserves in South Africa no longer keep rhino.
And yet despite all this, the reserve owners keep going. Battered from a nightmarish reality, but never broken. These incredible people continually suffer daily hardships worse than the majority would face in a lifetime, purely for the humbling goal of ensuring the rhino never goes extinct.
Yet as hopeless as this all seems, there is a simple and effective solution. Legalising the sale of rhino horn.
Rhino horn (unlike ivory) grows back. It is already trimmed throughout many reserves in order to deter poachers. It is so valuable it is illegal to destroy and yet currently illegal to sell, so has to be stored. But banks however, commonly refuse to take it as the risks of holding it are so high. And so – ironically and at a further insane cost – the reserve owners have to pay private deposit boxes and storage facilities just to store the horn.
All this means that with a completely renewable and sustainable source of horn, and an enormous existing stockpile already worth millions, the black market could be undermined and crippled overnight.
Development of an independent international governing trade organisation, proper certification and rigid legislature would allow the legal sale of horn that would render the poaching of rhinos redundant. Why pay more for an illegal horn, and why poach rhino at great risk to your own life when you’ll have no one to sell to?
Furthermore, the sale of rhino horn could save many reserves from bankruptcy. Adding a genuine value to an animal that in the current climate, costs too much to protect for so many- emotionally, physically and financially. Without a legal market for the sale of rhino horn, rhino will likely be extinct within ten years. The solution is staring us in the face.
If you want to help make a difference at the reserve, search for the Nkombi volunteer programme on Instagram, or donate to their non-profit to save the rhino at:
By Max Wright
DISCLAIMER: THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN THIS ARTICLE ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY AND DO NOT REPRESENT THE VIEWS OR OPINIONS OF COMPASS MAGAZINE AS A WHOLE OR THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY.
An excellent and well researched article by Max Wright. There are not many people that take the time to visit the front line and see for themselves what the rhino crisis is about. Thank you Max for not only visiting but also for understanding the situation and creating desperately needed awareness internationally. As you said the solution is simple, we need support globally if we are going to save the rhino from extinction.