Poachers may wipe out rhinos in S. Africa, campaigner warns
March 18, 2012 by Claudine Renaud
Rhinos will be wiped out from South Africa’s wildlife parks by 2015 if poaching continues at its current rate, a campaigner fighting to save the beasts has warned.
And corruption among officials is contributing to the ongoing slaughter, said veterinary nurse Karen Trendler.
In a career spanning almost two decades, 50-year-old Trendler has raised 200 baby rhino orphans at a wildlife sanctuary in Pretoria, earning the nickname “Mama Rhino.”
She is planning to open a special treatment centre for them, warning that the situation has become critical.
Poachers nabbed 448 rhinos last year, and in the first three months of this year the toll stood at 109 — in other words, a kill-rate of more than one a day.
While the poachers target the adult rhinos for their horns, baby rhinos often die too, unable to survive alone.
The sharp increase in poaching has raised concerns among experts that the animals could disappear from the wild within the next four years, Trendler said.
“You hate to sound alarmist, you hate to even consider that it could happen. But if the poaching continues at the current rate we could eventually see rhino go extinct.
“There are predictions that by 2015 we could have no rhino.”
The problem has been exacerbated by the fact that some people working in wildlife conservation and animal welfare have been implicated in the lucrative poaching industry, Trendler said.
“There are some incredibly good guys in the business who are doing amazing things and who would give their lives for those rhino.
“But unfortunately we do have an element of corruption. There have already been prosecutions and arrests, where government officials are complicit.”
The booming market for rhino horn and increasingly sophisticated poaching methods help explain the devastating death-rate, Trendler said.
“There is a growing economy in Asia, so there is more disposable income to pay for Chinese traditional medicine.
“There is easier accessibility, poachers have better technology, so using cell phones and GPS they can move the horn that much quicker through the process.
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