South African game reserve poisons rhino's horns to prevent poaching

[xchrom]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/apr/04/rhino-horns-poisoned-poachers-protect


The Sabi Sand Game Reserve is injecting non-lethal chemical mixtures into rhino's horns. Photograph: David Smith/Sabi Sand Game Reserve

A game reserve in South Africa has taken the radical step of poisoning rhino horns so that people risk becoming "seriously ill" if they consume them.

Sabi Sand said it had injected a mix of parasiticides and indelible pink dye into more than 100 rhinos' horns over the past 18 months to combat international poaching syndicates. More than 200 rhinos have been poached so far this year in South Africa, driven by demand in the far east, where horn ground into powder is seen as a delicacy or traditional medicine.

"Consumers of the powdered horn in Asia risk becoming seriously ill from ingesting a so-called medicinal product, which is now contaminated with a non-lethal chemical package," said Andrew Parker, chief executive of the Sabi Sand Wildtuin Association, a group of private landowners in Mpumalanga province.

The "toxification" process involves tranquilising a rhino, drilling a hole in its horn then injecting the dye and parasiticides generally used to control ticks on animals such as horses, cattle and sheep; it is toxic to humans. "It'll make [people] very ill – nausea, stomach ache, diarrhoea – it won't kill them," Parker continued. "It will be very visible, so it would take a very stupid consumer to consume this."

[Autumn]

1. I like this. A very smart idea.

rec

[lunasun]

2. better than cutting their horn to keep them alive Good Idea

[mopinko]

3. awesome idea.

very clever.

[Demeter]

4. And just HOW is the potential user, who believes in sympathetic magic, going to know this?

Short of a massive ad campaign (which they won't believe) or a mass poisoning (which will have magnificent blowback, guaranteed).

[wtmusic]

5. When he starts puking his brains out. nt

[AtheistCrusader]

6. Why use non-lethal posion?

Fuck it. Do it right.

[wtmusic]

7. For the same reason you can't booby trap you house

when you go on vacation.

I suppose the argument is that being stupid shouldn't be a death penalty.

[AtheistCrusader]

8. My house isn't an endangered species.

Insurance can cover the contents.

Can insurance bring back biodiversity that has been lost?

This isn't going to work. It needs to be MASSIVELY poisonous even to make people sick. Do you imagine that the pills they sell with this stuff in it are high potency? There's a tiny, tiny bit diluted across all of them for max profits, if there's any in them at all.

Make the source lethally poisonous, solve the problem.

[wtmusic]

9. I'm with you

There's probably a danger of harming the rhinos, and possibly other wildlife.

What about flooding the market with fake rhino horn?

[Nihil]

10. Good move!

Make it as concentrated as is possible without harming the rhino so that the inevitable
dilution at the "consumer" end doesn't avoid the consequences.

FWIW, they should also do this with all "bush-meat" either on the market or intercepted
in transport - maybe a couple of doses of severe diarrhoea will work where simple polite
education has been failing?