![]() The black rhino is smaller than the white, weighing up to about 3,000 pounds, but it’s more quarrelsome.” But the big feathered ears are acutely sensitive, as are its vast snuffling nasal passages. (“Rhinoceros” means “nose horn.”) Its eyes are dim little poppy seeds low on the sides of its great skull. A white rhino can stand six feet at the shoulders and weigh 6,000 pounds or more, with a horn up to six feet in length, and a slightly shorter one just behind. They are massive creatures, second only to elephants among modern land animals, with folds of thick flesh that look like protective plating. Richard Conniff wrote in Smithsonian magazine, “The peculiar appeal of rhinos is that they seem to have lumbered straight out of the Age of Dinosaurs. A group of rhinos is called a "crash" or “herd.” The plural in English is rhinoceros or rhinoceroses. The word rhinoceros is derived through Latin from the Ancient Greek rhino ("nose") and keras ("horn"). "Rhinos could go extinct in our lifetime as a result of this if awareness isn't raised." He hopes increasing public awareness about the plight of rhinos could spur a crackdown on the criminals who buy and kill for these horns.The rhinoceros are the world's second largest land animal after the elephant. "We have to raise awareness and get on top of this," Lewis concluded. "Indian rhinos have much larger horns than the other two Asian species, and we've seen escalation to their poaching similar to Africa in the past three or four years." "They were nearly wiped out 100 years ago, and they're hanging on by a thread," Lewis said. Still, two of the three Asian rhino species, the Javan and Sumatran rhinoceroses, are critically endangered at populations of 40 and 400, respectively, Lewis said, and only 2,400 or so Indian rhinoceroses remain in the wild. ![]() "People can throw in all kinds of crazy things, and it could actually be very dangerous."Īsian rhinos, which generally have smaller horns, seem to be less of a target for poachers. With prices that high, there's also the prospect "of creating anything and calling it rhino horn," Lewis said. "Taking rhino horn has the same effects as chewing on your fingernails: no medicinal properties whatsoever." Rhino horn is made from keratin, "from compacted hair, a very similar substance to the hooves of a horse or a cow, or a person's own fingernails," Lewis said. The country's newly affluent middle and upper class seems to be seeking rhino horn as some kind of miraculous remedy, he said, although its traditional use in Chinese medicine is for fevers and nosebleed. "A lot of that has to do with how Vietnam's economy has grown astronomically," Lewis said. Most rhino horns leaving southern Africa are destined for markets in Asia, especially Vietnam, where demand has escalated in recent years. "This tactic of using helicopters and veterinary drugs on darts has really only come out in the last six months to a year. "We're up against the emergence of really high-tech poachers," Lewis said. Now highly organized international groups of illegal hunters are using helicopters and deploying technologies including night-vision scopes, silenced weapons and drugged darts to find and kill these giants. Hundreds of thousands of rhinos once roamed throughout Africa. Some 4,000 black rhinos and 17,500 white rhinos are all that keep Africa's rhinoceros population from extinction. Of the two African species, the white rhinoceros is near-threatened, and the black rhinoceros is critically endangered. Two species of rhino are native to Africa, while three are native to southern Asia. Bits of crushed horn are a prized ingredient in traditional Asian medicines. The horns might weigh 6.3 to 8.1 pounds (2.9 to 3.7 kilograms) on average. "Thus far in 2010 alone, more than 200 rhinos were poached within South Africa, with a lot of those poached outside national parks, so that's a more than 2,000 percent increase in just three years' time." "Within South Africa's national parks - not counting private land there, where poaching was rare - there were 10 rhinos poached in 2007," said Matthew Lewis, senior program officer for African species conservation for the World Wildlife Fund. South Africa, which holds more than 80 percent of the continent's rhino population, has been losing at least 20 rhinos per month. These crimes are fueled by demand for African rhino horn from the Asian market, where it can fetch more than $30,000 a pound ($60,000 per kilogram).Īfrica is losing a rhinoceros every other day. The poaching of rhinos for their horns has risen dramatically over the last year and a half, conservationists report.
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