Rhinos at risk

Poachers prevail

The illegal trade in rhino horns is threatening the animal with extinction

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Readers' comments



The best solution is educating the demand side of the equation. Clearly people think that is unfeasible, although frankly it hasnt even been tried. I suspect, the largest number of people in the anti-Poaching comunity are Western whites super-sensitive to anything that may possibly smack of anti-Asian racism.

Funily enough they are happy to hold their noses and look the other way when hundreds of poor starving Africans desperate to feed their families are shot down for poaching.

OK so education the Asians is too 'probldematic'. The second best options in my view is legalisation. It should at least be tried.

Anti Poaching

If we legalize Trade in Rhino Horn we will and can Save the Rhino we will also be able to…..

Reduce Unemployment
Empower emergent and current Black farmers and teach them to farm/breed with wildlife
Educate our people
Strengthen our Economy
Ensure that Tourism is always an attraction
Ensure that the economic value of our Black and White Rhino remain a South African Resource

Removing the Rhinos Horn is no different to farming any other wildlife or domestic animal – other than the Rhino stays alive… Make the right choice – Ignorance is not an excuse.

OneEarth in reply to Anti Poaching

Between 19 000 - 22 000 Rhinos remain in South Africa (estimated numbers), there is not enough time to debate this issue.

What will save the Rhino - Lift the Ban on trade. Control the markets.
218 Rhino have been poached this year alone - The Trade ban is currently killing the species at the same rate the poachers are.

Get rid of CITES - Lift the ban

The minute you involve the people you will get buy into protecting the Rhino.
We can all see what the Trade ban is doing.. It is time to change this as it is obvious IT IS NOT WORKING.

South Africa is running out of time. If the Trade ban being lifted is the very thing that saves the Rhino Species. Then I am all for it.

The estimated loss of Rhino for this year will be in excess of 600+ - While we debate this today it another two Rhino will die.

Pro Trade

When has Prohibition helped a country?

Prohibition creates disrespect for the law.
Prohibition creates organized crime.
Prohibition permanently corrupts law enforcement, the court system, and politics.
Prohibition overburdens police, courts, and the penal system.
Prohibition harms people financially, emotionally, and morally.
Prohibition changes our country — for the worse.
Prohibition pushes up the cost of everything it touches

Human Child

2 things:

(1) The main problem today is that poachers are part of huge, well-organised, international crime syndicates, ones also often linked to drugs, human- and weapon-trafficking etc. It's not some local poor guy poaching to feed his family (well, it kind of is, but that's only the tip of the iceberg)

(2) There are 2 solutions. One is to shave off all horns from all rhinos. The other is to farm rhinos intensively to increase supply. Both are currently being tried by people with very little means. I would have liked a discussion of this in the article.

Everything you want to know on this subject was very recently covered in "Rhino Wars" by National Geographic Magazine: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/03/rhino-wars/gwin-text.

liberty lee in reply to Human Child

Human Child has it right.

This situation sounds like a potentially wonderful opportunity to raise rhinos, improve the population, AND make a lot of money selling the products to willing (if ignorant) buyers.

It would be nice if The Economist investigated the possibilities and wrote more about what might work to save rhinos (and other endangered species).

Lee Nason
New Bedford, Massachusetts

Why not just give Chinese perverts samples of Viagra so they can stop trying all these bizarre remedies. Chinese impotence seems to be responsible for much of the poaching going on the in world today. From seal penis, to rhino horn, to elephant trunk, to tiger penis, its completely insane. If we give them free samples, they will realize that it works so much better than those placebos and maybe they will cut this ridiculous nonsense out.

Mental Dysentery

Is there something keeping South Africa from going out, tranquilizing 20K rhinos, cutting their horns off, and flooding the market? South Africa makes a nice profit(more than enough to offset the costs of the project), the rhinos get to live(though slightly less cool looking, but I'd guess that's a bigger problem for the tourists than the rhinos themselves), and the price is driven down to the point that poaching is no longer profitable. Plus, the old adage about fools and their money continues to be true. South Africa could even use the money to maintain rhino habitat.

I must be missing something here, what is it?


The Chinese government needs to start a project to revise the herbs and plants manuals of TCM, just like Li Shizhen did 500 years ago, which produced the Bencao Gangmu (Compendium of Materia Medica). This time, take out all ingredients that are toxic (like lead and silver) and originate from endangered species (rhino horn, tiger bones, bear bile, etc). Li Shizhen devoted his entire adult life to the Bencao Gangmu without any government support, and he finished it, so this should not be too hard for the current Chinese government.

Nightscroft Squire Maldunne

Attention Chinese: The consumption of the phallic shaped appendages of various animals will not cure your impotence. Please stop killing the worlds endangered species. Viagra is much cheaper and it actually works. Chinese traditional medicine is complete nonsense.

Nightscroft Squire Maldunne, China has banned Rhino Horn for decades, now the focus is Vietnam. Update your info.




hmmmmmmm in reply to hmmmmmmm

Btw, the use of Rhino Horn in traditional medicine is for fever reduce. Since wide spread use Acetaminophen for the same purpose, that use has been completely eliminated, since Acetaminophen is more effective and consistent. Any other use of the horn is completely unsupported in traditional literature and is snake oil in every sense of the word.


Bolstering the watch-dogs in Rhino habitats will never end the Rhino poaching problem. Poachers will always find a way to kill their rhinos, just like drug smugglers will always find a way past border protection.

The only real solution is to undermine the market for the horns - educate its consumers on how unfathomably stupid they are for thinking that glorified fingernails will cure their cancer or harden their loins. It will work.

Moran ya Simba

The abuse of wild animals as "medicines" in Asia, especially Confusian cultures (China and Vietnam), should join trade and human rights as things where we open up a running and somewhat pressing dialogue with our friends in Beijing and Hanoi and where relevant, to request that they come down stronger, also with educational campaigns as well as better law enforcement. We should join hands with India, home to the largest populations in Asia of wild tigers and rhinos, as well as African countries, in this dialogue.


National Geographic wrote a very good article on Rhino poaching in South Africa earlier this year. Apparently it is very common in east Asia, the author even mentioned its common use in Vietnamese restaurants. It seems to me if you attach a social stigma to the eradication of a species on the buyers end, it will reduce the supply. It is equally important to show local communities in South Africa that Rhino are a finite commodity.


Free up the trade in rhino horn and elephant tusks and regulate it as the diamond industry has done! Share proceeds with local communities and they will instinctively conserve their valuable rhino populations!


After reading the posts on this subject I can see that many people really care about endangered species and would like to do something. But what?

If only 1% of Chinese want rhino horn, then there is sufficient demand to exterminate them don't you think? There are only a few left and it is my understanding they breed very slowly. I just don't see how an informational campaign would be effective.

There is something satisfying in making the horn "unusable," but that would be politically "difficult."

Another approach is to relocate them to a secure environment where they can be REALLY protected. It almost doesn't matter where as they will probably be extinct in my lifetime if nothing is done. It would take lots of money and political will. Both are in shorter supply than rhinos!


Go ahead and educate 1.2 billion Chinese, plus millions of Vietnamese, the other major destination for rhino horn. Or if you plan to specifically target those who are buying, trading or supplying the rhino horn, how exactly would you identify and reach them? We know that television is the dominant form of advertising in China and we also know that these consumers are not huge Twitter or Facebook fans. Media time for "massive advertising campaigns" would be prohibitively expensive and may neither reach nor convince those evil consumers.

Would it not make more sense to sell--and tax--horn from natural mortality? Revenues from legal trade could be plowed back into in situ anti-poaching efforts.


The solution lies in convincing the Chinese that Rhino horn is just hair and does not do you any good whatsoever in bed or outside it.

I cannot understand why the UN and WWF etc cannot launch massive publicity campaigns and adverts China to convince people not to eat these animals.

I suppose it is much easierr to convince despicable African governments to shoot their poverty-ridden people for hunting the beasts than to embarrass powerful and prickly Asiatic governments like the Chinese.

bobzyouruncle in reply to Reigal

The problem with superstition (and dare I say it religion) is that once someone is stuck in that mind set its very hard to get them to think logically or accept the data and science that refutes their beliefs.

We humans seem to be thoroughly hard wired to be superstitious (probably an evolutionary adaptation from the past that is now redundant).

I am optimistic, however, that there are enough people who care that can help fight this problem.

Heck, maybe someone will grow Rhino horns from stem cells in a labarotory ;)


I find it exasperating that the Economist persists in trotting out the nonsensical 'aphrodisiac' myth. Your staff would do well to read pages 75 and 76 of 'The Book of General Ignorance' written back in 2006 by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson (or, for that matter, any credible peer-reviewed work on the demand for rhino horn) – if they can get it right, so should you! Rhino horn has been used for several millennia in various Asian markets for both ornamental and genuine medicinal purposes. Its use in Traditional Chinese Medicine, to treat serious fevers and inflammatory conditions, is grounded in many generations of ancestral experience and forms part of a deeply held belief system in an alternative approach to healing (much like homeopathy and naturopathy in the West). The author's jibe about growing wealth not being accompanied by growing wisdom is misguided: it is somewhat insulting and inappropriate and does nothing to foster deeper understanding of this issue.

CA-Oxonian's suggestion to poison unsuspecting Asian consumers genuinely trying to cure themselves or their loved ones of serious ailments is morally bankrupt, unrealistic and unsustainable. CuriousGirl is on the right track. Most surviving African rhinos are owned by parastatals, communities and private interests, who are in a position to sell their horn stockpiles and reinvest the proceeds to finance much-needed protection costs (and mostly very keen to do so). Rhino horn can even be harvested off live animals without harming them and it regrows. But the CITES ban on rhino horn trade – in place since 1977 – won’t allow such a solution. Instead it ensures that black-market prices continue to soar to unnecessarily spectacular levels, encouraging ever more aggressive poaching attempts while organized crime syndicates bank all the profits. Unfortunately it seems that major international NGOs have a strong vested interest in maintaining this drama rather than seeking a practical achievable solution that has been proven to work for animals such as woolly sheep and South American vicunas (which similarly yield valuable harvestable products for which they do not need to be slaughtered).

Skip27 in reply to Natrealist

I have lived in one of these countries, and no educated person eats tiger penis or rhino horn. Man of these buyers are old, creepy rapists who enjoy exploiting underage girls and dining on endnagered animals. I would love to see one of these racist, masoginistic predators lap-up some lead-and-cadmium laced rhino horn. Trust me, no factory workers consume this garbage.

Note, the trade is not flowing to Taiwan and Singapore, the two societies with the most prominent traditional Chinese medicine practicioners. China's "traditional" Chinese medicine is not even really Chinese. They killed them all in the 1950s. Today these are just superstitous peasants. Real Chinese medicine doctors from Taiwan and Singapore laugh at them, and cry for their patients.

Snowman VS in reply to Natrealist

Traditional Chinese medicine, really? Yeah, let's kill all of the rare animals (the rarer the species, the more valuable and better it is as a cure (or a delicacy), right?). Would be really good if China again turned their back to the world and just disappeared from the view. Maybe then we would have some hope to see rhinos in the future.

the idler of march in reply to Natrealist

I like the way you adopt a brisk commonsense tone to promote the idea that a lump of congealed hair growing from a Rhino's face can cure diseases. Could you briefly clarify
a) Has this ever been established by a credible double-blind trial or similar?
b) When you refer to 'credible peer-reviewed works on the demand for rhino horn' are you suggesting that these articles not only discuss the demand for Rhino horn, but make a factual case that Rhino horn is actually an effective medicine?
c) When you refer to 'ancestral experience', the obvious response is that quite a lot of stuff falls into that category. Is this by itself evidence? If so why do we no longer bleed patients or strap bits of tombstone to our heads to cure toothache?

Natrealist in reply to Skip27

Users of rhino horn include numerous members of elite society in Vietnam, including many women, not just 'old, creepy racists'. And surveys in mainland China show continued significant interest in the use of animal ingredients such as tiger bone and rhino horn in traditional medicines, despite the domestic ban that was implemented (under political pressure from the USA) in 1993. Senior officials in China also still believe in the efficacy of rhino horn as medicine. Your characterization is misinformed and smacks of bigotry.

Natrealist in reply to the idler of march

In response to the idler of march:
I am not promoting the idea that rhino horn works as medicine, but trying to point out that may others firmly believe that it does - and that is what we have to address.
a) The facts here are murky and inconclusive. What is important is that many traditional Asian doctors and their patients continue to claim vehemently that they have achieved positive results: this is what drives demand.
b) There are no credible peer-reviewed works on the rhino horn trade that assert that rhino horn is used as an aphrodisiac - this is a false Western media meme. That was my point.
c) My point here is simply that rhino horn use has a long precedent and is deeply entrenched in Asian culture - it will be very difficult to change this.

gregoryconnect in reply to Natrealist

Natrealist, you are part of the problem. It is obvious that wealth in this instance was not accompanied by wisdom. Your point that using the horn for ornamental purposes is somehow less idiotic than using it as an aphrodisiac is surely a joke. Ask yourself how many Rhino you see walking around East Asia these days. The problem isnt the method with which the horn is harvested, its the ignorance that dictates its harvesting to begin with.

supamark in reply to Natrealist

Rhino horn, tiger penis, bear bile, etc. - none of it has any medicinal value. None at all. Only the ignorant think they do have an effect. For the most part, traditional Chinese medicine is just snake oil - it has no good effect (and often has poisons in it). The only exceptions are some of the plants, which have medicinal value.

That's not biggotry, it's fact. And the fact is, these animals are being hunted to extinction by ignorant asians with new found money.

My misunderstanding - I thought you were suggesting that the stuff actually works as medicine. Given that it has no medical value, whether it is believed by some to be an aphrodisiac or believed to be another variety of medicine is, I think, irrelevant. Presumably you are taking issue with this because you feel that describing it as an aphrodisiac carries some hint of mockery. Personally I don't see it as being the central topic.

I would very much back the writer's observation that wealth has not been accompanied by wisdom. Driving an animal to extinction to harvest parts which are of no use at all fits the 'lack of wisdom' bill very neatly. Bear in mind that in developed countries you would not be allowed to drive an animal to extinction even if it had proven medical value.

What is driving the rhino to extinction is the global trade ban. Rhino horn is easily harvested off live animals and it regrows. There are huge stockpiles of horn piling up in Southern Africa, collected from natural mortalities and dehorning operations and potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Conservation initiatives here are desperately short of funds and the steadily increasing cost of protecting rhinos from poachers threatens to seriously undermine the viability of both public and private protected areas.
Most Southern African rhino custodians are really keen to sell some of their stockpiles to raise much-needed funds. And there are many willing buyers in Asia. They are not wilfully driving the animal to extinction, but the market forces that continue to provide them with what they want are powerful and the trade ban – just like the failed ‘War on Drugs’ – simply aggravates the situation by driving up the price to extraordinary levels and ensuring that the trade is effectively managed by sophisticated organized crime syndicates.
With willing buyers and sellers, and a renewable resource that can easily be harvested and provided from non-lethal sources, you would think that rhinos would be no more threatened than woolly sheep. But this solution cannot be allowed – why not? Because opinionated people in armchairs in other countries believe they have the right to dictate to Asians what they may or may not use as medicine based on some understanding of ‘science’ (but actually mostly driven by the desire of multinational pharmaceutical countries to sell more drugs) even while hundreds of thousands of people in their own countries increasingly use homeopathic and natural medicines, many of which are also not considered to have ‘medical value’.
And perpetuating the aphrodisiac myth is not irrelevant. It speaks volumes about the somewhat disdainful attitude of Westerners toward traditional Asian cultural practices and I fear it will eventually backfire on us.

Natrealist in reply to supamark

Supamark, bear bile contains an amino acid called UDCA that is highly effective in treating ailments such as liver cirrhosis (you can do a web search to verify this). It was discovered through its use in Traditional Chinese Medicine and is now approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. So, just as an example, your claim that bear bile has no medical value is patently wrong. And I know many Western TCM practitioners and their patients who will disagree with your ‘snake oil’ label.

Finearms in reply to Natrealist

There is no doubt that the only immediate solution is to commercialise the sale of rhino horn and to legalise it. That will take it out of the crime syndicates grip. Rhino horn is a reproducing sustainable commdoity and while I agree that long term education is absolutely necessary, the survival of the species is predicated upon URGENT action. CITES have FAILED the rhino. I agree that the NGO's have a major vested interest in continuing the anti trade lunacy. After all who will donate them a cent if trade is legalised and then they will have to give up their expensive limosines, five star hotels first class airfights and precious wasteful way of life. I dont say we should flood the market and drop the price. there is some logic in saying that if you drop the price you vastly increase demand because it becomes more affordable at grass roots level. But trade will incentivise the right people to invest in the preservation of the species. Remove all rhino to smaller reserves, allow dehorning and legalise trade and watch how fast the species will recover because they WILL be protected, there WONT be such a huge demand for illegal poaching and the people MOST adept at turning the tide (the game ranchers/farmers in PRIVATE enterprise in association with the Wildlife authorities) will be properly capitalised and their profits WILL go back into the active preservation of the species.

supamark in reply to Natrealist

Psst - ursodiol isn't made from bear bile, it's chemically synthisized (at least in the developed/civilized world it is). It is also not an amino acid (there isn't even any nitrogen in it). Traditional chinese medicine also often contains powdered human. Got any more disinformation?


I heard years ago about an effort in Africa to protect elephants from poaching which, by all accounts, has been highly successful in rebuilding the populations of the threatened animals. If I'm remembering it correctly, elephant hunting was once again legalized---and ownership of particular herds was handed over to tribes in the region. These tribes sell hunting licenses for the elephant herds they own, and these command a steep price. This immediately creates a strong incentive for a tribe to monitor and protect its herd(s), since the tribe's primary livelihood is now tied to the creatures. I am curious why this approach, or one similar to it, has not been suggested for the rhinos in this article.



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