Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
August 15, 2018
Wildlife Apocalypse: How Myths and Superstitions Are Driving Animal Extinctions Sporting AK-47 assault rifles and axes, the group of men stalk a black rhino through the African bush. They soon bring it down with powerful volleys. While still alive, the rhino peers at the men as they approach. The poachers quickly use the axe to sever its horn from its head, not caring that they are inflicting great pain as they hit a nerve and leave the rhino dehorned and its head a pulpy mess. It dies, leaving its own family behind because of human greed.“‘Rhino have a particularly plaintive cry,’ (conservationist Ian) Player1 wrote (in The White Rhino Saga), ‘which once heard is never forgotten. The screams of agony from rhino that have had their horns chopped off while still alive should reach into the hearts of all of us’” (Rademeyer 2017).
The poachers sell that horn to a middleman, who may be working for yet another smuggler, a criminal syndicate, or even terrorists. Government border agents and officials are bribed as the horn makes its way to countries such as China and Vietnam, where the horn is used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) to treat various ailments, none of them proven scientifically to work.2
While most rhino horns are ground into powder and used as medicine to supposedly cure cancer, impotence, or, as an illegal wildlife trade monitor says, “you name it,” people in Asia have begun wearing beads or bangles made from rhino horns thought to cure ailments as well as for status symbols. Some horns are fashioned into ceremonial cups (Kolata 2018).
Why is the illegal supply and demand for rhino horns so pervasive? Rhino horn, after all, is mainly composed of keratin, the same substance in human hair and fingernails. But it’s as valuable as gold or heroin. A kilogram, for instance, can sell for $60,000 (Kolata 2018).
The killing of rhinos is just the tip of the iceberg in
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Them All!
