The Grit: Losing the Big Game to Poachers
In October 2010 a global goal was set to protect the most vulnerable animals from extinction. It came too late for the Javan rhino in Vietnam, which, in October 2011, was declared extinct. The last Javan Rhino in Vietnam was found dead with a single bullet in its leg and its horn removed.
The rhino lived in a national park created specifically to protect the surviving population from persecution. Now the last remaining Javan rhinos—around 50—stave off the inevitable on a remote Indonesian peninsula.
It’s a measure of the failure of the conservation movement, successive governments, and frankly, the entire human race, that the destruction of the planet’s biodiversity has accelerated in recent years. Every day up to 200 species on the planet disappear forever. This is estimated at anything from 100 times to 11,000 times the natural rate.
Every day up to 200 species on the planet disappear forever. This is estimated at anything from 100 times to 11,000 times the natural rate.
South Africa is home to three-quarters of the world’s rhino population, around 20,000 animals. From 2000 to 2005, an average of 36 rhino were killed by poachers. In the last two years that number has averaged more than 320.
Poachers tranquilize the animals with a dart, then use chainsaws to cut off their horns. The rhinos, drugged and helpless, bleed to death where they lie, or in this appalling case, stand.
The nine-fold increase in killings has been attributed to rising demand for the rhino horn in parts of Asia and the Middle East. In Vietnam and China, ground rhino horn powder is widely thought to be a cure for many ills, including cancer.
It actually has the same medicinal effect as eating your own toenails. Rhinoceros poaching is a multibillion-pound trade based on nothing more than superstitious, venal, human stupidity.
Naturally, in 2012 the killings are expected to increase.
So the authorities at Kruger National Park, home to 3,300 of South Africa’s rhinos, are building a 95-mile electric fence along the border of Mozambique (from where many of the poachers are thought to come), and hiring 150 extra rangers to attempt to combat the slaughter.
Meanwhile, the debate over legalizing the trade in rhino horn continues.
It feels like tinkering at the margins. Everywhere you look, our idiot species is doing what it can to eliminate the few majestic creatures which exert that primal tug on our imaginations.
There are just 3,200 tigers left in the wild—shot for body parts and skins, their habitats destroyed by deforestation. Polar bears have got about a century left if climate change trends in the Arctic continue, and the Gorillas in the Mist (remember them?) are down to 720. Well done, everyone.
An environment too hostile for big mammals could very easily become an environment too hostile for the human mammal.
It is difficult not to despair, but the picture isn’t uniformly bleak. Significant successes are being recorded and goodness knows the organizations at the forefront of wildlife conservation would welcome your help. Time and money can make a difference.
You should also ignore those who who say the human race has more pressing concerns than saving endangered animals in distant continents. That's not true. It’s a different facet of the same concern.
We live on the same planet. The decline of these creatures is intrinsically linked to human problems—climate change, pollution, population growth, lack of education, organized crime and habitat destruction.
An environment too hostile for big mammals could very easily become an environment too hostile for the human mammal. If we continue to systemically exterminate these awe-inspiring creatures, it might not be too long before we find ourselves heading for our own lingering and torturous destruction.
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