Rhinos at risk get US crime-fighting boost
AFP – 1 hr 13 mins ago
A US-based animal protection group said Wednesday it is collecting money for
a new initiative to equip rangers in South Africa and Zimbabwe with crime
scene kits to better hunt rhinoceros poachers.
The program was announced just weeks after rhino poaching in South Africa
hit a record high for the year, and follows more troubling news that several
world species of rhino have been poached into extinction or close to it.
The rare, lumbering creatures are increasingly targeted to supply organized
crime syndicates selling rhino horn for use in Asian medicinal treatments,
especially in Vietnam, where it is believed to cure cancer.
The initiative aims to cut back on rhino deaths by boosting the
investigative prowess of those who try to stop the sophisticated poachers,
who often use helicopters, night vision equipment and high-powered rifles.
Fewer than five percent of poachers are ever convicted, according to the
International Rhino Foundation, which is launching the new program called
“Operation Stop Poaching Now.”
The effort targets 11 “highly threatened rhino habitats in South Africa and
Zimbabwe,” the foundation said in a statement.
Funds donated to the campaign “will go toward providing rangers with
training in investigative techniques, intelligence gathering, evidence
collection, communications, and rhino identification and monitoring,” it
said.
Rangers will also get crime-scene kits that contain a camera, metal
detector, GPS, finger-printing materials and sealable evidence bags.
“It’s an unbelievably difficult and dangerous job,” said Susie Ellis,
executive director of the International Rhino Foundation.
“But there are thousands of dedicated, passionate rangers in South Africa,
Zimbabwe and other range countries trying to stand in between the rhinos and
the poachers.”
The World Wildlife Fund said earlier this month that rhino poaching in South
Africa had hit a new record high last year, with 341 of the animals lost to
poachers.
WWF also confirmed that rhinos have gone extinct in Vietnam, with the
country’s last Javan rhino found shot with its horn removed.
Separately, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which
compiled the Red List of Threatened Species, said earlier this month that a
subspecies of the western black rhino native to western Africa is now
extinct.
Central Africa’s northern white rhino was also listed as “possibly extinct
in the wild.”
Booming demand has driven the price to half a million dollars per horn,
according to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
The low conviction rate for poachers means “they are literally getting away
with murder,” Ellis said.