In the early 1990's two events changed the fate of the rhinos of South Africa. John Hume arrived here from Zimbabwe where the rhino population had been decimated and the Southern white rhino population of South Africa was down listed from CITES I to CITES II to facilitate trophy hunting and to get a foot in the door for future permission for rhino horn trade. Thereafter the wildlife trade monitoring organisation TRAFFIC became alarmed at the rampant criminal activity around rhino horn smuggling and recommended a moratorium on internal trade in South Africa. By then Hume and his investors had began a concerted effort to recruit farmers to get involved in buying and breeding rhinos, all in anticipation of one day getting permission to trade horn! They accumulated rhinos, and regularly immobilized them with a life-threatening drug solely to harvest the animals horn for stockpiling. All the while this bogus product has been banned throughout the world and the trade therein is illegal. Some of these rhino ranchers have been dealing with criminal syndicates such as Vixay Keosavang a Loatian wildlife smuggling kingpin who the FBI has offered a $1 million reward for.
I don't sympathize with the Hume's. They allow the trophy hunting of rhinos on their farms. They accumulated rhinos for the sole purpose of trading in horn one day. Only two parties want rhino horn trade... rhino ranchers and the international criminal syndicates. Meanwhile their insistence that the South African Dept. of Environment entertain their call for another (yes their have been several unsuccessful prior) attempt to propose for rhino horn trade at CITES 2016 has distracted the authorities and poaching is now rampant. Most importantly... impoverished communities have been corrupted into seeing rhino horn as a get-rich-quick activity. We need to concentrate on demand control and law enforcement. ALL talk of trade must be halted and the Southern white should be put back onto CITES Appendix I so that commercial trade will cease. We should not be allowing the trophy hunting of this endangered species. A foremost expert on rhinos, Dr. Kobus du Toit has disputed the official population figures and says the population of the Southern white could be half of estimated 20,000. He says the "guestimate" of 8,000 Southern whites in the Kruger Park is incorrect and it is more like 1,800 to 3,000. We are losing over 1,000 rhinos a year so why haven't the IUCN made any effort to increase their conservation status from Near Threatened to Endangered?
There is only one reason.. they want to trade rhino horn for immense profits. How can we allow this to cause the extinction of an iconic animal - one of the Big 5 of Africa?
Its all the name calling that you have done that has polarised that issue surrounding rhino and its future to the point that people who are trying to save the rhino are divided.
Please see this video...