SA Game Warden Poisoning Rhino Horns - Animal Unharmed, But Users Will Be Sickened Or Killed

[hatrack]

Given the epidemic of rhino poaching across Africa and Asia, which has placed four out of five species in jeopardy of extinction, one fed-up game manager wants to take the fight beyond the poachers to the consumer. Ed Hern, owner of the Lion and Rhino Park near Johannesburg, told South Africa's The Times that he has begun working with a veterinarian on injecting poison into a rhino's horn to consumers. He told The Times that people who consumed poisoned rhino horn "would get very sick or die".

Unlike the consumer, the rhino likely wouldn't be hurt by the poison, since their was no blood flow from the horn into the rest of the animal. Still Hern was watching his test rhino to make sure it wasn't showing symptoms. Hern has been warned by unnamed lawyers that he could get "into a lot of trouble" if someone is harmed by ingesting rhino harm that was poisoned.

Banned worldwide by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) rhino horn is used as a traditional curative in Chinese medicine. While scientific studies have shown that rhino horn has no medicinal properties, it remains in high demand fueling the violent and illegal trade of rhino poaching.

In the last six months, South Africa has lost 124 rhinos to poachers. Ed Hern—on the frontlines of the poaching battle—has taken in five rhino orphans whose mothers were killed. Hern pays private guards to protect his rhinos, but says they are no match against the hi-tech equipment, including helicopters, used by the wildlife trafficking mafia.

EDIT

http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0728-hance_poison_rhino.html

[mattvermont]

1. think your gonna get

a stiffy, and instead we get a stiff....love it.

[htuttle]

2. Hmm... it might not even matter if he actually did it or not

...as long as potential consumers of said Rhino horns believe he did. Couldn't hurt.

I hope he did it however.

on edit:

Now that I think of it, I don't know why rhino horn peddlers don't just sell powdered chicken bones instead of powdered rhino horn. It'd be a lot easier and cheaper to get...

[BrklynLiberal]

3. Exactly. Just the threat might be enough to discourage the use of rhino horns...and..

you are right..How would anyone on the purchasing end know for sure if it was really rhino horn, or ground chicken bones!!!

The placebo effect is amazing.

[JoeyT]

5. Because the buyers want to see the horn before they buy it, I imagine.

The anti-poison thing actually had a basis in reality. Back when the most common poisons were alkaline (like arsenic) it could react with the keratin in a rhino horn cup.

Of course not all poisons were alkaline, a problem which I'm sure lead to many a lord or lady's last words being "But....my cup? Why *gurgle*"

[1957john1957]

4. Brilliant.

[tomm2thumbs]

6. reminds me of the paraquat & pot incident in the 70's

sometimes just the idea that you might be getting poisoned is enough to stop folks

[4_TN_TITANS]

7. good luck trying to trace the source back through the black market

Maybe a death or two would scare the buyers into just taking Cialis.

[petronius]

8. I wonder what the breakdown is between poached rhino horn for consumption

and that used for dagger handles and other ornaments? Maybe this guy needs to find a poison that works by contact as well as by ingestion.

Actually, I think it would be better to find a way to 'spoil' the horn with poison, then mark the treated rhinos so poachers will avoid them. Once that sinks in, he can just mark every rhino whether or not it's poisoned...