-NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER-
VERONICA NICOLICH
Our Planet's Poaching Problems
Image made with: photofunia
Veronica Nicolich analyses the truth behind animal products and poaching.
Picture this. It is a warm evening in Zimbabwe. You are a parent rhinoceros and are feeding on some delicious plant roots and bulbs with your young calf. You look around for any fierce predators but there is nothing, or no one in your sight. You continue munching on your meal then you feel it. You feel a pain in your leg and your neck and you drop down to the ground. A loud bang rings in your ears, a gunshot. Your calf has run off into a small cover of bushes close enough to see you. You try to move towards your calf but your leg says otherwise. You hear loud stomping getting closer and closer to you and soon you see a human. Not just any human though, a poacher. The poacher takes out a chainsaw and moves towards you. They then begin the painful process of de-horning you. You feel the flesh in your face being cut open. You call out to your calf to run away then begin crying in pain. Finally the poacher removes the chainsaw from your face and with it your horn. You moan in agony as they leave you lying there, helpless on the ground. You feel the steady flow of blood from your face. Your young calf is calling out to you and rushing towards you. You lift your head and give out one last call to your calf before your head smashes into the ground and you slowly drift off into the light.
POACHING. What is poaching? It is simply the illegal hunting of wild animals. What are we doing about it? A large group of volunteers called the International Anti-Poaching Foundation (IAPF) are keeping a close eye on certain animals which are popular poaching targets. According to the IAPF, "Wildlife crime is sweeping the planet. The illegal trafficking of wildlife is now one of the world's largest criminal industries, with repeated links to terrorism networks. High Target Species such as elephant, rhino, tiger and gorilla are being hunted to extinction. These animals are the most difficult to protect, as poachers go to the most extreme lengths to kill them." The IAPF establish, implement and regulate ranger training, security plans, operations and equipment and supply. The IAPF support animal conservation teams from Mozambique, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Australia and the United States. Two examples of teams that they support are the Bob Irwin Coalition and the Save African Rhino Foundation, both of which are Australian conservation teams. To promote awareness of poaching in schools, the IAPF have created a booklet for students to complete which includes topics such as information about each rhino species, the nature of the issue, the reasons for poaching, how it is carried out, who is working against poaching, the necessary skills for a game ranger and how they can contribute to the cause.
Apart from the IAPF, organisations such as the Save the Rhino Foundation have joined the fight against poaching. The Save the Rhino Foundation support keeping the five rhinoceros species alive and hopefully help their populations grow to their original numbers. These species are the White, Black, Greater one-horned, Sumatran and the Javan rhinos. Their website provides information on the types of rhinos, their population figures, current threats, professional resources, statistics and controversial issues related to rhinos and poaching. Some of these controversial issues are legalizing the horn trade, elephant and rhino poaching funding terrorism and poisoning the rhino horns.
While the Southern White Rhinos are a prevalent species, the Northern White Rhinos have been named critically endangered with a population of 20,000. The subspecies was declared extinct in the wild in 2008 and only four individuals remain in Garamba National Park. During the 19th century, as the European influence over land usage and trades strengthened, the Black Rhino along with several hundred thousand animals were hunted mercilessly across Africa. By 1970, almost 5000 animals were left. Black Rhinos are currently a rare sight due to the large increase in poaching. The intensified poaching pressure in the 1970s-80s was a result of the increase in demand of rhino horn in the Middle East and Asia. Between 1970 and 1992, the Black Rhinos suffered a 96% reduction from their total population leaving around 2400. Poaching remains the biggest threat to the Black Rhinos but with strict protection and effective biological management it appears that the Black Rhino will see a slow recovery from their approximate numbers of 5055 (figures were published in 2012 by IUCN).
Human encroachment is the biggest threat to the greater one horned rhino. The remaining animals that have escaped the poachers are only found in protected reserves under strict monitoring. Populations are currently being brought back from the edge of extinction. Under Indian and Nepalese wildlife authorities' strict protection, greater one horned rhino numbers are recovering from below 200 in the last century to about 2500 today. Habitat loss and destruction are also large threats to the rhino populations. Conflicts between humans and the greater one horned rhinos are inevitable because they live in habitats with very fertile soil and humans use that land for agriculture. These conflicts mainly end in a serious injury to the rhinos. Human agricultural development, loss of habitat and poaching are the main threats to the Sumatran rhinos. The Sumatran rhino has disappeared from most of its natural environment but suitable habitats still remain. This continued until 1995 when only about 2-300 were left worldwide, mainly in the places where they are currently found today as well as National Parks of Wildlife Reserves. Since then, the population decrease has come to a halt thanks to the hard working anti-poaching teams known as Rhino Protection Units. Inbreeding and loss of genetic variability and vitality are the outcomes of the Javan rhino's tiny population. Long-term survival of the species is unlikely because of the habitats being too small to support a growing population. In April 2010, a Javan rhino was found in Vietnam poached with its horns removed. After DNA research on dung samples, it was indicated that this was the last rhino of its population (all of the above figures are from the Save the Rhino website).
Poaching increases the rate of extinction to the animal species and it destroys the existing food chain. This will cause major disruptions in the ecosystem and more animals, targeted or not will be more likely to go extinct. Poaching also means that the animals left in the ecosystem must adapt to the changes which can take generations, which might be too long. Apart from the environmental loss, the future generations will no longer be able to see these amazing creatures that currently roam the Earth.
Pictures from: http://www.savetherhino.org/rhino_info/rhino_population_figures
For more information go to: http://www.savetherhino.org
Animal Products
Picture from: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-09-26/stylish-handbags-in-nine-shades-of-gray
Every day we are surrounded by animal products. Fabric softener; dihydrogenated tallow dimethyl ammonium chloride (comes from cattle, sheep and horse industry). Plastic bags; made with animal fats. Glue in woodwork; made from boiling animals' cognitive tissue and bones. Fireworks; stearic acids found in animals derivatives. I'm sure you didn't know that all these products contain some part of an animal, right? We already know that one of the causes for poaching is the "need" for animal resources such as rhino horn or elephant tusk, but how much do you really know about these products?
In the 1970-80s horns from rhinoceros killed in East Africa were sent off to Yemen to be made into ornamental dagger (jambiyas) handles while horns from rhinoceros poached in Southern Africa and some from those poached in Asia were sent off to the "Far East" where it was used in traditional medicines.
Trading with Yemen was mainly caused by the oil boom, when the income in the Middle East allowed the rise of a middle class that could afford luxury items. Although jambiyas can have a handle made from precious metals or plastic and can be decorated with gemstones, jambiyas handles made from a rhinoceros horn are considered the "Rolex or Porsche version" of the products. Even though this is a traditional use of the rhino horn, it is causing fewer deaths. More of the rhino horn is being poached for the supply and demand in the Asian markets for traditional medicine.
Quote from: savetherhino.org
In some Asian countries, ground rhinoceros horn is used to "cure almost everything but impotence and sexual inadequacy". A man named Bernard Read translated the 1597 Chinese materia medica "Pen Ts'ao Kang Mu", the complete section on rhino horn. Apparently, "the best is from a freshly killed male animal" which can help to explain why poachers kill animals right before they remove their "product". His translation lists the rules and uses of the horn as follows. Pregnant women should not take it as it will kill the fetus. It is an antidote for poisons and a cure for devil possession. For intermittent fevers with delirium. It can ward off evil spirits and miasmas. To expel fear and anxiety, calm the liver and clear the vision. It can be used to dissolve phlegm and for jasmine and snake poisoning. A sedative to the viscera, a tonic, antipyretic. It can remove hallucinations and bewitching nightmares. Continuous use leads to lightening of the body and make one very robust. For typhoid, feverish colds, headaches, carbuncles and boils full of pus. An Antidote to the evil miasma of hill streams. For dysentery, infantile convulsions, arthritis, melancholia and loss of the voice. Ashed and taken with water, it can treat violent vomiting, food poisoning and an overdose of poisonous drugs. Ground up into a paste with water it is used for hematemesis, epistaxis, rectal bleeding and heavy smallpox. Because it was thought to be such a pharmacological item, perhaps it is redundant for the rhinoceros horn to also serve as an aphrodisiac.
So why do we believe it was supposed to be some sort of a "love potion"? It is most likely from the influence of Western writers who only had a passing acquaintance with Chinese traditional medicine. One of these "Western writers" was J.A. Hunter who was known to have shot more than one thousand rhinos. In 1952 he wrote “The horns are worth thirty shillings a pound or more – ten shillings more than the finest grade of ivory. These horns are used for a curious purpose. Orientals consider them a powerful aphrodisiac and there is an unlimited demand for them in India and Arabia. No doubt any man who has a harem of thirty or more beautiful women occasionally feels the need for a little artificial stimulant.” Hunter tried this 'love potion' but maybe it didn't work because he was alone. He wrote “I closely followed the recipe given to me by an Indian trader,” he continues to explain how to use the horn in detail. “Take about one square inch of rhino horn, file it into a powder form, put it in a muslin bag like a tea bag, and boil it in a cup of water until the water turns dark brown. I took several doses of the concoction but regret to report that I felt no effects. Possibly I lacked faith. It is also possible that a man in the bush, surrounded by nothing by rhinos and native scouts, does not receive the proper inspiration to make the dose effective.”
In C.A. Spinage's study of the animals of East Africa in 1962, it appeared as if he shared the belief that Asians were using the horn as an aphrodisiac and were willing to pay a small fortune for it. "On account of mysterious aphrodisiac properties attributed to the horn by certain Asiatic peoples, the Rhino has been sorely persecuted… With its horn fetching the present high price the prospects of its continued survival in the face of the poachers’ onslaught are not very bright.” Anthropologist Louis Leakey also has this misunderstanding. In 1969, he commented in his book on African wildlife that rhinos were "in grave danger from poachers because rhino horn commands a high price in the Far East, where it is rated as an aphrodisiac." In S.O.S. Rhino, C.A.W. Guggisberg argued that “The superstition that has done more harm to the rhinoceros family than all others is undoubtedly the Chinese belief in the powerful aphrodisiac properties of the horns. Through the centuries untold generations of aged gentlemen have been imbibing powdered rhino horn in some appropriate drink, hoping to feel like a twenty-year-old when next entering the harem!”
Even though rhinoceros horn is not supposed to have aphrodisiacal properties it is still one of the "mainstays" of TCM, with its collection responsible for the deaths of over 10,000 rhinos across the globe. The people that use rhino horn as a medicine really believe that it works. This is what drives up the demand from which poachers thrive. Ann and Steve Toon commented in 2002, "For practitioners of traditional Asian medicine, rhino horn is not perceived as a frivolous love potion, but as an irreplaceable pharmaceutical necessity.” In 2003, Eric Dinerstein noted: “In fact, traditional Chinese medicine never has used rhinoceros horn as an aphrodisiac: this is a myth of the Western media and in some parts of Asia is viewed as a kind of anti-Chinese hysteria.”
Picture from: http://www.savetherhino.org/rhino_info/threats_to_rhino/poaching_for_traditional_chinese_medicine
For thousands of years rhino horn has been a very important part of TCM. It doesn't matter where the horn comes from because the horn of a rhino from any continent can be used in medicine. In East Africa - mainly Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda- statistics on rhino horn have been kept since 1926. During this period most of the rhinos that were killed were black rhinos, but the poachers or "harvesters" wouldn't pass up the opportunity to get a white rhino if it walked through their gun-sights. In the 1930s, Nigel Leader-Williams (1992) declared exports from East Africa to average around 1600kg per year which meant the death of 555 black rhinos annually. In WWII, the numbers raised to 2500kg which is around 860 black rhinos died each year. In 1950-60, the auction houses reported around 1800kg each year which meant about 600 rhinos died each year. In the 1970s, the number of poaching caused fatalities rose to 3400kg meaning 1180 rhinos died every year in that decade. Leader-Williams identified the Far East's consuming nations to be Hong Kong, mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Sabah Malaysia, Peninsular Malaysia, Brunei, Macau, and Thailand. Not surprisingly the major Asian importers of African rhino horn are mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
In the 1960-70s, the world's largest importer of rhino horn was Hong Kong. Although all imports of rhino horn were officially banned in 1979 by the government, it was being smuggled in from Burma, Indonesia, India, South Africa, Macao, Malaysia and Taiwan. In 1987 at the CITES meeting in Ottawa, all participating parties agreed to moderate the rhino crisis by shutting down the rhino product trade completely. A promise that the ban would take effect later that year was made by the then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher but this didn't happen in an effective way. There were suggestions that substitutes for the rhino parts could be used in TCM. Scientists at the China Pharmacological Institute suggested using buffalo horn which is made of the same substance (keratin) as rhino horns. The manager of China's National Health Medicines Products agreed that all their new medicines now use buffalo horn instead of rhino horn. In Wiseman and Ellis's 1996 "Fundamentals of Traditional Chinese Medicine" in the section on "Heat-clearing, blood-cooling medicinals" we learn that the admission of all the rhinos didn't have to be killed at all. After listing the symptoms that rhino horn can alleviate there is a note saying "The rhinoceros is an endangered species. Please use water buffalo horn as a substitute.”
Taiwanese self-made millionaires are notorious for the consumption of rare and exotic wildlife and being aware that prices of rhino horn will rise soon, are stocking up as an investment. In regions where rhino horn products are dispensed either legally or illegally the most popular medicines are used as tranquilizers, a cure for laryngitis, a method to nourish the blood and building energy and also relieving dizziness.
The Keratin in rhinoceros horn is a major protein that makes up hair, wool, nail, horn, hoofs and the quills of feathers. It is chemically complex and it contains large quantities of sulphur which contains amino acids, mainly cysteine as well as tyrosine, histidine, lysine and arginine. It also contains the salts calcium carbonate and calcium phosphate. Apart from the rhino horns, their nails are also made up of keratin. With a grand total of twelve toenails per rhino these nails can also be powered or shaved for pharmaceuticals.
The rarity of rhinos and the lessening availability of rhino horn is driving the prices higher and this intensifies the pressure on the small rhino populations. For people with their annual income far below the living standards the opportunity to gain an exuberant amount of money in comparison by just killing a large, ungainly and seemingly "useless" creature must be overwhelming. In Nowak's revision of “Walker’s Mammals of the World”, we read that “R. unicornis is jeopardized by loss of habitat to the expanding human population and illegal killing, especially in response to the astonishing rise in the value of the horn. The wholesale value of Asian rhino horn increased from US $35 per kg [2.2 pounds] in 1972 to $9,000 per kilogram in the mid-1980s. The retail price, after the horn has been shaved or powdered for sale, has at times in certain East Asian markets reached $20,000-$30,000 per kilo. In contrast, in May 1990, pure gold was worth about $13,000 per kilo.”
Throughout the markets in East Asia, the trade of medicines made from rhino horn is a very big business, but because a lot of it is conducted in various black markets, it is possible that its true magnitude will never be known.
On the Save the Rhino website it states "Indeed, it is not clear that rhino horn serves any medicinal purpose whatsoever, but it is a testimony to the power of tradition that millions of people believe that it does. Of course, if people want to believe in prayer, acupuncture or voodoo as a cure for what ails them, there is no reason why they shouldn’t, but if animals are being killed to provide nostrums that have been shown to be useless, then there is a very good reason to curtail the use of rhino horn. There are five species of rhinoceros, and with the exception of one subspecies of the African white rhino, all are in danger of being hunted to extinction for their horns. Rhinos as we know them have been around for millions of years, but Dr H. Sapiens has created a predicament from which they might never recover. It is heartbreaking to realise that the world’s rhinos are being eliminated from the face of the earth in the name of medications that probably don’t work."
If the baby rhinoceros that had to watch its parent die survives by itself, will history repeat itself and leave this rhino's calf orphaned? Will this be an infinite loop that can only be broken by those that created it? No. Various animal protection teams are working together to protect Earth's animals from horrible deaths and extinction. We can do our part if we support these groups by raising awareness of this current issue within our communities and donating a small amount of money to the cause. Remember every dollar counts, and so does every life.
