Fake rhino horn cell phone cases coming to a store near you? It may sound strange, but that’s what one San Francisco-based startup has in mind—and it thinks such products can save the animals. The company, Pembient, plans to bioengineer fake rhino horn that artists could carve into lifestyle items such as jewelry, libation cups, […]
Tag: rhino horn
POLL: Can legalised trade save Africa’s last rhinos from poaching?
Time is fast running out for the rhinoceros. In their final stronghold of South Africa, rampant poaching for horn threatens to wipe out the last 20,000 southern white rhinos in less than two decades. Among conservation scientists, there is deep uncertainty over how best to respond to the poaching crisis. Many express reserved support for the […]
Video: Meet the Dog Trained to Take Down Poachers
Diego is an anti-poaching dog working for the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, a critical sanctuary for endangered rhinos in Africa and the home of the last male northern white rhino. In this striking short film by Tom Aveling, we get a dog’s-eye view of the obstacles Diego tackles in his training: scaling cliffs, leaping […]
Can Anything Save the Sumatran Rhino From Extinction?
In 2008, a rhino wandered into an oil-palm plantation in Sabah, a state on the Malaysian island of Borneo. It was limping from a snare injury and, for a rhino, was unfamiliar looking: very small—and hairy. When Rasmus Gren Havmøller—a Danish Ph.D. student focused on conservation, ecology, and genetics at the University of Copenhagen—read about […]
POLL: Should the ban on rhino horn trade be lifted?
Two South Africans who farm rhinos on game ranches appeared in court today in Pretoria seeking to overturn the country’s ban on the domestic rhino horn trade. John Hume and Johan Kruger argue that the ban, which has been in force since 2009, is unconstitutional. And they claim it has contributed to the recent sharp […]
POLL: Should the ban on South Africa’s horn trade be lifted?
Amid mixed responses from conservationists and animal activists, a group of rhino breeders and game reserve owners in South Africa is taking legal action to overturn a domestic ban on the trade of rhino horn. Arguing that horns are a renewable resource, the group has filed a case in a civil court claiming that selling […]
As poaching heats up, conservationists advocate sending South Africa rhinos to Texas
Flying a thousand white rhinos from South Africa to south Texas sounds like something out of a bad Disney movie. But the proposal to transport 6% of the country’s white rhinos to the Lone Star State, announced last week by Group Elephant and the Exotic Wildlife Alliance, underlines just how serious the illegal wildlife trade […]
Officials: Sumatran rhino is extinct in the wild in Sabah
There are no Sumatran rhinos left in the wild in the Malaysian state of Sabah, confirmed Masidi Manjun, the Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister, over the weekend. In 2008, conservationists estimated there were around 50 rhinos in the state. Five years later, it dropped that estimate to just ten. Now, it’s admitted the awful truth: […]