Fear for rhinos as poachers kill 500 in South Africa

[douglas9]

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) — Conservationists raised the alarm on Tuesday as South Africa reported a sharp increase in rhino poaching, with almost 500 animals killed last year.

The country is home to a large majority of the world's rhinos and a hotspot for poaching, which is driven by demand from Asia, where horns are used in traditional medicine for their supposed therapeutic effect.

The environment ministry said that, despite government efforts to tackle the illicit trade, 499 of the thick-skinned herbivores were killed in 2023, mostly in state-run parks. This represents an 11% increase over the 2022 figure.


https://www.courthousenews.com/fear-for-rhinos-as-poachers-kill-500-in-south-africa/

[pandr32]

1. This is disgusting and the horns are useless medically.

It is time that these folk-lore type medical cures for ED and other things were addresses in an information blitz. China should run a campaign to end this kind of needless poaching.
I am Canadian born with family still there and there has been poaching of black bears for their paws and gallbladders. These are used for medicines and as delicacies (paws).
It is high time for the Chinese government to start educating their people about believing that parts of threatened animals have magical/curative powers.
They need to be pressured.

[2naSalit]

2. The black bear thing...

Really picked up out here about decade ago. The poachers aren't given much for consequences.

[pandr32]

3. There was an expos done in Vancouver by a Chinese/Canadian journalist.

He was able to go into restaurants in Chinatown and blend in. He went to several to find if he could order bear paw dishes off the menu and was quite successful. Ditto for visiting medicine shops and finding illegal endangered animal offerings.
I wish I could remember what year this was, but it was likely in the 1990s.

[2naSalit]

5. Happened in the touristown...

Where I lived after a new Chinese restaurant opened up. It was like the Chinese mafia in there, they always hired the ruzzian waitresses. They got busted more than once by F&G but got minuscule fines and stayed in business.

[pandr32]

8. Probably paid protection.

Corruption is a huge problem.

[2naSalit]

9. More than likely...

It's ubiquitous it seems.

[LT Barclay]

11. My wife saw a documentary somewhere where a black bear was held in a cage and "milked" for bile through

an implanted tube, and held in a tiny cage. It really affected her.
I don't understand why these crimes aren't taken more seriously. It reminds me of all the "no littering, fines up to $1000". Has anyone ever heard of someone getting a ticket for littering?

But you should see the kind of enforcement if someone stands up for animals. I read a book called "Operation Biteback" and the full force of the US government came down on a few kids trying to save fur animals from fur farms.

[flvegan]

12. Operation Bite Back predated the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act by around a decade.

It was a precursor, and the AETA had a very chilling effect. From a fur industry standpoint not as much as some might like, as certain people still do certain things. The Blueprint came out in 2019 or something.

For the record, if interested, one is more than welcome to see who is responsible for the AETA. You'll unfortunately find a lot of democrats on that roll call. For what it's worth.

[LT Barclay]

13. Thanks for the offer, but a right leaning democrat is still preferable to any republican. Maybe there was a day long

ago when that wasn't true, but it is now.
One of these days I'm going to have to get off my duff and start working earlier in the process and try to get a better batch of people in the primary system.
I do appreciate the timeline. With the AETA coming after, that's a really frightening thing. That and the Patriot act defining a lot of environmental activism as "terrorism".
On-going war against the left.

[LT Barclay]

6. I think a non profit sending free Viagra to China along with a billboard campaign

with captions like “I eat fish every day and still can’t swim like Michael Phelps”

[pandr32]

7. Free Viagra sounds okay, but...

do average Chinese people know who Michael Phelps is?

[LT Barclay]

10. We'll have to find a culturally relevant athlete! Maybe some "scientific" studies, see if eating spiders enables people

to climb walls, eating ducks let people fly?
I'd better stop. There is nothing that drags me into a near-racist fury easier than thinking about the Chinese and their long list of species they are destroying. Including the vaquita (in case you hadn't noticed my signature line).
In the other documentary done by the same group (funding from Leonardo DiCaprio foundation), I think one of the most appalling things was the blase attitude of the Chinese shop owners who were selling all the ivory trinkets. The guy organizing all the killing in Africa looked as evil as any movie villain ever, but those shop owners really infuriated me. Sad thing about the ivory is there was a group of Chinese folks at a festival here in the KC zoo around Christmas for their "Glow Wild" event and they were selling the same type of sculptures that were just as intricate, just as well crafted, but were made entirely of white jade.

[Ferrets are Cool]

4. I consider myself a peaceful person....

But I wish every last one of those motherfuckers would shoot THEMSELVES in the head and die.