Looking at the stats this might be true. The theory is that somebody is sitting on a stockpile of rhino horn and by wiping out the specie the price will go up. Apparently, some rhinos with their horns removed, also got shot. If this is true, how arrogant / selfish can you get?
I think, to save the rhino, these people and their markets should also be targeted. Take out the hunters and others will just take their place. Take out the market and their will be no point in killing the rhino. This of course will not be so easy.
How come their is so many Chinese if the men can’t get it up?
More seriously, it’s a case of sympathetic magic, a very common type of fallacy/superstition: “Look at the brute power of a rhino, focussed in its horn. I could be like the rhino if I get me some of that horn.” Smash that myth and the demand for rhino horn will disappear. Breeding or genetically modifying rhinos to be hornless might be quicker, bringing supply down to zero.
As for the idea that there’s a group trying to drive rhinos to extinction and stockpiling their horns seems to me a very silly idea. Even the dopiest trader must realise that terminating the source of a renewable asset is simply bad economics. It’s more likely that poachers are stepping up their efforts in response to those who mean to protect the rhinos.
According to Wikipedia (Rhinoceros - Wikipedia), it’s a myth that it’s used as an aphrodisiac, and that it’s actually used for fevers and convulsions (also of course not supported by any scientific evidence).
I’m really not sure what can be done about this.
It frustrates me intensely that this nonsense can drive a species to extinction, and I don’t really feel like there is much hope that education can change people’s minds about Traditional Chinese Medicine.
If I remember correctly, I think it was on JREF where one of the posters living in China was talking about how emotionally invested the Chinese people are in believing in TCM, and how they get extremely offended if you criticize it in any way.
Stockholm - Tigers could become extinct within 12 years but a top level meeting in Russia next month could help reverse the decline, nature conservation body WWF said on Thursday.
“The worse scenario is that the tiger could be gone when the next year of the tiger comes along, in 12 years,” said Ola Jennersten, head of the international nature conservation programme at WWF Sweden.
The organisation is leading a global campaign to attempt to double the number of tigers by 2022, when the next Chinese calendar year of the tiger comes around.
WWF said that in the last century, illegal hunting, a shrinking habitat and the trade of tiger parts used in oriental medicine had sent the number of the big cats worldwide plunging 97% to around just 3 200 tigers today.
“Despite the gloomy figures, the situation is more hopeful than ever,” Jennersten said, praising a political initiative of 13 ‘tiger states’ and different bodies set to meet in Russia on November 21-24 in a bid to halt possible extinction of the species.
“This will be achieved through increased political involvement, focus on the tiger landscapes that have the greatest chance of long term retention of the tiger, and increased control of tiger trade,” he said.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who in the past years has made a big show of his love for nature, publicly kissing animals and engaging in a string of stunts involving wildlife including tigers, is expected to attend the summit in Saint Petersburg.
WWF said some 1 800 tigers live in India, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh, 450 live in Sumatra, 400 in Malaysia, 350 are spread throughout southeast Asia and around 450 live in the wild in Russia.
>:D ;D >:D