“Most rhino horn is sold on the black market for use in traditional Asian medicine,” said Save the Rhino’s Cathy Dean. “In these cultures, horn is believed to reduce fever, rather than to be an aphrodisiac, which is a media myth. In some Middle Eastern countries, even though it is illegal, rhino horn is used for ornamental dagger handles – a status symbol procured at a terrible cost.”

According to Raoul du Toit, Director of Zimbabwe’s Lowveld Rhino Trust, “We must attach an economic value to rhinos so that local people can be given businesslike financial incentives to protect assets of which they should be co-owners. It is our best hope for the future.”

The Trust is increasingly being forced to undertake emergency operations to rescue rhinos as poaching has increased. “Without intervention, rhino groups in some of the more vulnerable areas will definitely be lost. In the Midlands Conservancy, for example, the black rhino population has declined from 45 a few years ago to about five animals now. We don’t want to see those losses repeated elsewhere.”

Image source: https://www.thedodo.com/rhino-horns-seized-2367150087.html

The Tragic Reality

Just after dawn in early March, Sinikwe, a black rhino cow, and her 16- month-old calf were ambushed by poachers in the thick brush. Sinikwe escaped with gunshot wounds. Her calf was shot and killed – its horn hacked off with an axe minutes after its death. Weeks later, a rhino monitoring unit that is checking on Sinikwe’s recovery sees that she is still returning regularly to her calf’s carcass.
The poachers also know of her unwillingness to abandon her calf. Their footprints have been seen recently, following hers from the dead calf.

Poachers generally target adults, who have large horns that provide a bigger profit. Rhino calves, still nursing and too young to survive on their own, are often left behind in the slaughter, sometimes with life-threatening injuries. Increasingly, injured and orphaned calves have to be rescued and bottlereared until they are old enough to be released. The Lowveld Rhino Trust has had to rescue five orphan calves over the past year, two of which are soon to be released back into the wild after successful hand-rearing.

Because of the constant poaching pressure, Lowveld rhino monitors become deeply concerned if their charges are not accounted for at all times. After Diniwe, a ten-year-old cow, disappeared for several weeks recently, Conservancy rhino teams became worried she had been poached. The
teams made a specific search for her, and finally located her, hiding in the bush with her weeks-old calf – a welcome sign of some hope for the future.