Rhino poaching debate
THE ironies pile up in this campaign against rhino poaching. Everyone (apart from the poaching syndicates and the end-users) wants the slaughter to stop. But dispute has arisen between those who want a total ban on trade in rhino horn – most notably used as an ingredient in so-called aphrodisiacs in south-east Asia – and those who want to flood the market with rhino horn that becomes available by natural mortality, bringing down the price and making it not worth the syndicates' and the poachers' while.
(A sub-irony, of course, is that rhino horn has no aphrodisiacal or male potency properties at all. It is the equivalent in organic chemistry of toenail clippings).
In separate letters to the Mercury last week, Ian Player – who headed Operation Rhino, the brilliantly successful campaign that brought the white rhino back from the edge of extinction – and David Cook argued strongly for the proposition that rhino would be best protected by the second option – legalising the sale of legitimately acquired horn and bringing down the price, making poaching economically unviable.
Everyone knows Ian Player. David Cook is the fellow who, as a deputy director with the old Natal Parks Board, organised the logistics of Operation Rhino. This was an enormously complex task: immobilising drugs, vehicles to pursue the rhino, vehicles to transport the huge beasts once captured, the building of holding bomas, feed … it just went on and on.
One surely has to accept the bona fides of these fellows; that they still have their hearts in it. And the current conservation agency – Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife – also supports their position.
During Operation Rhino, Player and his team met with immense opposition - from the ranching lobby, who wanted the reserves deproclaimed, and from politicians in national government who wanted the same. Mkuzi game reserve was at one stage actually pegged out for sub-division into farms. It came as close as that. Conservation was considered some sort of sentimental nonsense.
Now the purists – who want no trade whatever in rhino horn – seem to be putting Player and his ilk in virtually the same category as the poachers. That's real irony.
Non-issue
ANOTHER irony: had there been no Operation Rhino, the current controversy would not arise. There would have been no rhino to poach.
And how would the Chinese and Vietnamese end-users have got their jollies? They'd have had to just grind their teeth.
Mudwrestling
THE performance of the Pumas in Saturday's Loftus Mudwrestling Comedy wasn't too bad when you consider that only the night before they played against the Sharks.
What do you mean, nonsense? I watched the match. Final score: Sharks 34, Pumas 17.
But I do feel the sponsors and the TV channels are loading it on a bit. How can you expect these fellows to play two tough matches in two days?
What's that you say? The Pumas who played at King's Park were from Nelspruit? The Pumas at Loftus were from Buenos Aires?
Okay, I get it. Very confusing these Yankeefied rugby names. In the old days nobody would have confused Eastern Transvaal with Argentina.
Workshop
A MYSTIFYING e-mail arrives: "URGENT: Wild Men, Wild Women & Wild Dogs Workshop & Come Swim with Dolphins."
It's from the University of Stellenbosch Business School and the workshop apparently begins tomorrow at Ponto da Orou, in Mozambique.
Can't make it in the time available, I'm afraid, and I have to confess I have limited interest in wild men and wild dogs, though the wild women could be a different matter. Swimming with dolphins I'm definitely OK with though – in fact have been doing it since I was a boy.
But hey – I've just been reading something else. These scientists from the US National Marine Mammal Foundation say the squeals emitted by dolphins are squeals of pleasure, not just of communication.
Squeals of pleasure? Just what is it that these folk from the University of Stellenbosch Business School get up to at Ponto da Ouro?
Tailpiece
PADDY is on a quiz show.
"What is the capital of Ireland?"
"Pass."
"Kissing which famous stone gives you the gift of the gab?"
"Pass."
"What are the colours of the Irish flag?"
"Pass."
Voice from the audience: "Dat's right, Paddy. Tell 'em nuttin'!"
Last word
I feel like a fugitive from the law of averages.
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