-PJ
source: WorldWildlife.org
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Rhinos Listed as one of the Most Endangered Species
It's sad, but I have to say not very surprising: Asia's surprisingly few remaining Javan and Sumatran rhinos have been listed as one of the 100 Species Most at Risk of Extinction, a list issued by the London Zoological Society along with the IUCN (World conservation union). There are fewer than 50 remaining Javan rhinos, and while Sumatran rhinos live in a scattered distribution, there are an estimated 200 remaining in the wild. Also not surprisingly, this all is mostly because of poaching for Ivory. More than one Rhino subspecies has gone extinct because of this, along with other immediate threats such as habitat loss. The increasing demand for ivory, primarily from Vietnam, has caused poaching to skyrocket to record levels. Ivory is said to be a miracle cure for everything from flu to cancer, but obviously this is superstitious, just fuelling the ravenous sector of the Black Market that hungers for Ivory and ivory alone. But thankfully, actions are being taken to curb this hunger, and last year Nepal celebrated a year of no recorded poaching, mainly because of more and better law enforcement. But as long as poachers are put under the illusion that the rewards of doing this terrible crime outweigh the risk of being caught, rhinos remain at risk...
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has it ever occured to poachers that they just have to cut off the top of the horn the animal is fine the horn grows back and the poacher leaves with some ivory i mean why kill and get a non renewable ivory when they can keep it alive and get a renewable ivory set
ReplyDeleteMy feelings exactly. But according to my research, poachers want the WHOLE horn, so they can make larger pieces of "art". Another problem is is that there are some materials that look exactly like ivory, but they still refuse. There's some exclusive religious buisiness going on here.
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