The brutal truth for poaching for Rhino horn

An extract from The Sebakwe Black Rhino Trust website.

Rhino horn
Though rhino horn is made of nothing more than matted hair it is in great demand. In North Yemen, the most valuable Djambia daggers have handles made from rhino horn.
In China and the far east, the powdered horn is highly regarded as a traditional medicine for treating fevers but it is not used as an aphrodisiac as has been suggested.
Rhino horn is worth its weight in gold – the black market value is $40,000 for a single horn.
The middlemen in the Far East can make a fortune from trading in the horn and the individual poacher is only paid a fraction of the value but it still represents a large sum to him – a sum for which he is prepared to risk his life.

Dehorning
In a desperate attempt to stop the killing of rhino from poachers in Zimbabwe, a dehorning policy was introduced by National Parks and Wildlife Management.
This policy has been a failure – over 80 dehorned rhino were killed by poachers in 1993.
Dehorning is a very expensive exercise. Due to the growth of the horn stumps, the dehorning has to be repeated on an annual basis with the further risk of mortality from stress associated with mobilisation and capture.

Capture and translation
National Parks in Zimbabwe has introduced a policy to capture and translocate the black rhino from the Lower Zambezi valley to safer parts of the country.
These safe areas are called Intensive Protection Zones (IPZ’s). There are four:- Sinamatella, Matusadona, Chipenge and Matopos.
Half the remaining black rhino in Zimbabwe are now on private land in the three main rhino Conservancies: (1)Midlands Conservancy in the Midlands (2)Save Valley Conservancy in the south-east Lowveld (3)Bubiana Conservancy in West Nicholson.
These Conservancies are a unique partnership between state and private farmers and it is vital that they have full protection from the poachers.