Rhino poaching saga
ARRESTS in the rhino poaching saga. Yay! But the slaughter continues in Zululand. Groan!
But maybe people are beginning to box clever. When KZN Wildlife and people like Ian Player start suggesting we look at legalising the international trade in rhino horn – in that way collapsing prices and undercutting the international poaching syndicates – we surely need to take notice.
Key to it is the 21-ton stockpile of legal rhino horn, gathered over the years by natural attrition. Do we burn it, the way the Kenyans did with elephant ivory a few years ago, or do we use it to cheapen the commodity and make poaching no longer worthwhile? It's an agonising choice. Does one not then encourage men in the Far East in their wayward belief that rhino horn is an aid to sexual potency and possibly also a cure for cancer?
Reader Robin Stanford, of Mandeni, sends in an essay he wrote for a young girl to help in her schoolwork, setting out the overall threat to wildlife – rhino in particular. He covers trophy hunting and "canned" hunting – that especially obnoxious practice where caged lions are shot so that the "hunter" can afterwards pose for a photograph with a foot on the dead animal.
Also, of course, the rhino poaching and the horn issue, including the mooted legalisation of the horn trade. It's pretty thorough.
A final page is headed "Top Secret". It tells how to become a billionaire in three easy steps:
· Take four six-ton trucks to the national stockpile of rhino horn.
· Bribe the security guards with R1 billion each to look the other way.
· Load up the 21 tons of rhino horn (worth R1 trillion) and drive off.
Top Secret? The whereabouts of the national stockpile has to be kept secret, otherwise there will be a national traffic jam, every road crowded with politicos driving six-ton trucks.
That schoolgirl will no doubt get three gold stars.
Free verse
MEANWHILE, Sarita Mathur (who I'm sure I can remember writing for us when she herself was still a schoolgirl) sends in some impassioned free verse on behalf of the rhino.
Today we have the
Power of choice …
To rejoice
In the planning of Project
Save the Rhino.
Let us exercise this choice
And take action
So that there is a mass reaction
Against the inhumane slaughter of the rhinoceros.
This magnificent animal,
Grazer and browser,
Eating grass and twigs,
Part of the Big Five,
Let us help it survive
So that it can exist in peace,
Even though it doesn't have a voice,
The power of speech
To plead its own cause.
Let it exist,
To be looked at and admired,
From generation to generation,
God's wonderful creation.
Part of our heritage,
As is the earth
And the animals and trees in it.
I want my children and later my grandchildren
To go on safaris
Watching and learning about the rhinoceros.
However, they will not be able to
If this carnage does not stop.
The rhino, both black and white will become extinct,
Part of a history that no longer exists
If poachers aided by greedy, avaricious men and women
Do not stop their avarice.
It has a place in our world and in the lives of those who come after us.
Rhino horns … do they really boost sexual energy and cure disease?
No one knows for sure and nobody must care to answer this question,
For the fact remains
That the horns belong to a live animal
And to no-one else,
Not to corrupt people, poachers and those who
Would kill and slaughter
In order to enrich themselves in forbidden trade.
They are willing to see the end of a species …
Make it extinct …
I have a choice
Right now to take action.
So that my voice can be added to others,
Millions more
So that awareness is created and policies made so that people and poachers may cringe and take fright,
Afraid of policies and the might
Of those whose mission it is to
Save the rhino.
I have a choice,
By adding my Voice,
Save the rhino.
Tailpiece
Secretary: "I've got bad news for you."
Boss: "Why bad news? Be more positive."
Secretary: "Okay. The good news is you're not sterile."
Last word
Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him.
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