Removing the horn of a rhino is as painless as a haircut and has no effect on the social structure, feeding habits or fighting habits of the animal. Fighting still occurs with the same frequency and ferocity as before, but serious injuries and fatalities are reduced to zero.
Once the horn has been removed, it starts growing back at a rate of approximately 5cm per year. Just like hair, albeit a little slower.
On a visit to the farm my friend pointed out the remains of a rhino that had been poached a couple of weeks ago. The savages actually killed this rhino for the sake of two year's worth of horn growth. I made it my mission to find and assess every other rhino on the property.
Not one of them had a horn exceeding four inches (10cm)!
Over and above the monetary implications (half a million bucks down the chute for the owner), that was a prime breeding stock cow and all her potential offspring are gone forever.
Bloody savages.
As the old saying goes: if you keep on doing what you've always been doing, you will keep on getting what you always got.
Isn't it time to try a totally different approach? There are thousands of rhinos in privately owned breeding programs in this country. Lift the ban on the trade of rhino horn and the supply/demand balance will collapse. The bottom drops out of the price, and poachers will no longer be prepared to run the risk for a pittance. With rhino horn cheap and freely available, buyers will soon realise that they have been conned all along - the stuff is useless as aphrodisiac and has zero medicinal properties.
The rhinos are happy: they are no longer threatened and keep growing new horns to be harvested from time to time, like sheep being sheared for their wool. No harm in that.
The breeders are happy: at long last their considerable investment is beginning to pay off.
And who knows, maybe the rhino will eventually claw its way off the endangered species list.
I'm just saying...
