By Neal Carter
Rock Center
The town of Hoedspruit, South Africa is taking a controversial approach to protecting their rhinos. They've decided to dehorn their rhinos to ward off poachers.
"I'd hate us to be the future community that would apologize to the world for having lost such an important species to mankind as rhino," Trevor Jordan said.
Jordan and his son, Patrick, decided to take action when poachers claimed 25 of the town's rhinos last year. The Jordans recruited a team of rhino owners and concerned residents searching for a solution. They call themselves Rhino Revolution. Since August of last year, roughly 150 rhinos have had their horns safely removed in the town.
A rhino's horns grow back and the horns are safely removed after the animal has been darted with a tranquilizer.
The spike in poaching that's happening in Hoedspruit is happening throughout South Africa. More than 400 rhinos were killed in the country last year.
The Jordans said that their decision to dehorn their town's rhinos is a temporary solution.
"This is designed to push poachers away from our area, decrease the threat to our animals," Patrick Jordan said.
South Africa is home to three quarters of the world's last remaining rhinos. A rising demand for rhino horn in Asia has led to a drastic increase in poaching.
Harry Smith's full report, "Last Stand," aired Wednesday, Feb. 22. The two part piece is below.
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Why can these people not take the top part of the rhino horn and not kill these poor creatures? And why would they ever dart an animal, hack up their face and then let it come back from sedation to suffer? Mirinda Hern.....I truly feel your anguish and pain! So awful to dart these incredible animals and hack off it's horn, left to die. What are they thinking?
"What are they thinking?"
Some good sex with their wives/girfriends afterwards, maybe?
Good sex with their wives? Why don't they just chew on their own f@#king toenails?! Thats all the horns are anyway you freekin idiot? Why not just take Viagra? Why wipe out a whole species if creatures that is God given to us to care for, and keep safe for further generations! It's people like you who need to be extinct!!!
Mek your statement is ridiculous and frankly doesn't make any sense. However, I heard that Vietnamese Witch Doctor's skulls will cure cancer.
I think the only option will be to harvest the horns for the Asian market. Yes, they may not be able to make the quota by doing this, but it seems that at least some rhinos will be saved by this effort.
This approach would only make them want more.These people are all idiots.I've got some gravel in my driveway that I'm sure will cure cancer for the Vietnamese.What idiots!We will not give in to them.I think we should kill all of the poachers.Instant death penalty.Keep killing them until there are no more.Humans aren't endangered.Good riddance to them.
I agree w/Mel; treat it like a commodity and harvest it and sell it. And until poachers get the msg, guard them 24/7 and SHOOT TO KILL. I have read in respectable journals that this seemed to work in places where they have attempted roll back of the number of elephants and big cats being poached. We have to try every possible idea to save them. As stated in NatGeo, until humans started attacking them, they had survived everything else nature could throw at them for thousands of years. As a person who has stood 100 yards from a wild, black rhino female, they are awesome to see and hear. It'an outrage to allow this carnage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The issue is not solved by selling Rhino horn to fill demand. The issue must be resolved by educating the Chinese fools, and middle eastern idiots who thinks Rhino horn make them get erections. It is rumored that the poachers soak the horns in viagra to make the concoction actually work, and thus fuel the market. The solution is for the idiots to just take viagra. It is an awareness issue. Cutting off the horns and depleting the supply is by far the best temporary solution while education happens. You don't feed the market. You cut it off entirely. Those buyers involved should be ###### ashamed of themselves and have their own junk forcibly removed.
when the town dehorns its rhinos they should ship the horns to Asia that would cut into the profits of the poachers and make them less likely to poach the animals
Shoot the B......TARDS!!!!!!!
Agree
Hey, don't tell anyone, but asian skulls cure cancer. Just asian skulls. Now, don't go poaching Vietmanese and Chinese people, unless you want to cure your cancer.
Ignorance is mother of all evil, where there's a market there's a demand, and where's a demand there's an offer. While we villinize the poachers, I believe that a greater evil is done by those who knowingly pay for this product. People's beliefs far exceed logic, there's absoloutly no medical benefit or magical cure for anything in a rhino's horn, yet overwhealming stupidity creates a market for thir horns. Now poachers act as fast as they can, trying to avoid the risk of being caught which in most cases ends up with their deaths. So in order to avoid this, the fastest way to get a horn is to kill the source. There should be a global entity out there that protects these animals, and goes after the buyer as well as the seller. Because China and Japan are the two most powerful asian nations governments from other countries try to avoid having to put preasure on them. However Japan is globally known for their cruelty to animals, such as sharks, dolphins, whales, monkeys and rinhoes.
Someone has to step up and confront these people, it's time someone steps up and demands sanctions against these 2 powerful nations. It's been done before, the US has a long standing Tuna block against Venezuela for their killing of Dolphins, so if we can go against 3rd world countries why can't we go against the powerful ones as well?
Why don't the governments of these people produce a mass communication to them that these things don't work and to KNOCK IT OFF!!!
:( I'm so ashamed to be of the same race of being that finds this acceptable and allow this to happen I would fight for this before anty oil reserve or religious factioning... Goverment priorities are So skewed and divertited from actual humanity!
Ignorance and a lack of knowing the true God, is what triggering the slaughter of these powerful and awesome animals. If they had love in their heart they would know that Jehovah God created these animals for our pleasure to love and to protect. Then they are so stupid, because if you kill them off, they'll be extinct and where will they get their so call cure from then? If they must have these tusks ,then do as the rescuers did and saw it off leaving the stump to grow back and not killing them. I don't like to have to do that, but at least it will solve both parties problem.
not to sound like an idiot but is there no place in the western world where we can send these anamils to live a happy and pocher free life....and i dont mean a zoo.
Yeah well more needs to be done to protect these beautiful Animals other wise all of the Black Rhino Population will be extinct.