Tough times for rhinos

The plight of rhinos worldwide is such that it has prompted Time magazine to promote a story on the dwindling numbers of this species on the front page of one of its latest editions.

There are five species of rhinoceros worldwide – two in Africa and three in Asia, with two of the latter being in the brink of extinction.

The African rhino populations were until recently deemed safe, but the tide is turning.

Between 2000 and 2007 only about a dozen rhinos were poached each year in South Africa, where nearly 90 per cent of all rhinos live, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

But last year, 333 were illegally slaughtered there, nearly all found with their horns chopped off.

The inexorable surge in poaching of this vulnerable species is being fuelled by Chinese medicine and the ivory artefact industry, both of which have an insatiable appetite for the species’ horns.

Ancient traditional Chinese medicine texts recommend the powdered horn for ailments such as fever and arthritis, and modern-day practitioners have prescribed it for high blood pressure and even cancer.

Despite common lore, rhino horn is not considered an aphrodisiac.

A recent development is the removal of the animal’s eyes, besides the ivory horn, with the Vietnamese market prizing this organ for their purported medicinal properties.